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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Captivity, by M. Leonora Eyles
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Captivity
+
+
+Author: M. Leonora Eyles
+
+Release Date: April 2, 2005  [eBook #15527]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAPTIVITY***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Michael Ciesielski, Project Gutenberg Beginners
+Projects, Mary Meehan, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+CAPTIVITY
+
+by
+
+M. LEONORA EYLES
+
+Author of _Margaret Protests_
+
+1922
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+TO E. J. R-S.
+
+You have often said that you could never write a book. You have written
+this one just as surely as Beatrice wrote the Vita Nuova for Dante.
+Until I talked with you I did not know that our lives are the pathway
+for God's feet; I had not realized that Trinity of body, brain and
+spirit; and it had never come to me before how, for each other's sake,
+we must set a censor, very strong and austere, upon our secret thoughts.
+I have learnt these things from you; the gold of your thoughts has
+passed through the crucible of my experience to make a book. Perhaps a
+little of the gold has been left clinging to the crucible--and for that
+I have to thank you, my dear.
+
+Margaret Leonora Eyles.
+
+Bexhill-on-Sea, _1st February, 1920._
+
+
+
+
+"Man comes into life to seek and find his sufficient beauty, to
+serve it, to win and increase it, to fight for it; to face anything
+and dare anything for it, counting death as nothing so long as the
+dying eyes still turn to it. And fear and dulness and indolence and
+appetite--which, indeed, are no more than fear's three crippled brothers
+who make ambushes and creep by night--are against him, to delay him, to
+hold him off, to hamper and beguile and kill him in that quest."
+
+H. G. Wells ("The History of Mr. Polly").
+
+
+
+
+Captivity
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+As long as Marcella could remember, the old farm-house had lain in
+shadows, without and within.
+
+Behind it rose the great height of Ben Grief, with his gaunt face gashed
+here by glowering groups of conifers, there by burns that ran down to
+the River Nagar like tears down a wrinkled old face. Marcella had read
+in poetry books about burns that sang and laughing waters that clattered
+to the sea for all the world like happy children running home from
+school. But the waters on Ben Grief neither laughed nor sang. Sometimes
+they ran violently, as though Ben Grief were in a rage of passionate
+weeping; sometimes they went sullenly as though he sulked.
+
+It was upon Ben Grief that Marcella looked when she went to bed at night
+and when she wakened in the morning in her little stark room at the back
+of the house. There was another window in the room from which she could
+have seen the sea, but Aunt Janet had had a great mahogany wardrobe
+placed right across it, and only the sound of the sea, creeping
+sometimes, lashing most often, came to her as she lay in bed, reminding
+her that the sea was there all the time.
+
+In front of the house rose Lashnagar, the home of desolation, a
+billowing waste of sand rising to about a thousand feet at the crest.
+Curlews called and sea-gulls screamed over Lashnagar; heather grew upon
+it, purple and olive-green; fennel and cooch and henbane sprang side by
+side with dwarfed stink-nettles, stunted by the salt sand in which they
+were rooted. But the soil was not deep enough for trees or bushes to
+take root.
+
+In Marcella's lifetime men had been lost on Lashnagar, and sheep and
+dogs, adventuring too far, had never come back. Legend had it that
+hundreds of years ago Lashnagar had been a quiet little village nestling
+round Castle Lashcairn, the home of Marcella's folks. That was in the
+year before Flodden Field, a hot, dry time that began with Lady Day and
+lasted till the Feast of All Souls without rain or storm. In that hot
+summer a witch-woman, very beautiful, had come to Lashnagar to win the
+soul of Andrew Lashcairn, winning with his soul his bed and his board. A
+wild wooing it was, and a wilder wedding. All the wooing had been done
+by the woman--as was the way of the Lashcairn women ever afterwards--in
+the dry heat of that unnatural summer when the sap dried in the trees
+and the marrow in men's bones, while the heated blood surged through
+their veins more quickly than ever before. On the Feast of All Souls,
+the wedding day, a copper sun rose in a sky of blood and lead, and all
+the folks of Lashnagar drank deeply to drive away impending horror. That
+night, after they slept, while Andrew Lashcairn lay awake in the
+witch-woman's arms, a great wind came in from the sea, sweeping before
+it the salt sand of the dunes, covering the village and the castle and
+the old feet of Ben Grief where sheep and cattle fed. The witch-woman,
+with her lord and a few servants, fought and battled a way through the
+storm of sand and stones to settle where the last of the wind-blown
+desert piled on the knees of Ben Grief. The next year Andrew rode away
+to the fight at Flodden Field. Unknown to him, the witch-woman who loved
+him rode close to his heels.
+
+There his pennant, with its sun in splendour and its flaunting "By
+myself I stand," went down. When the hush of death fell on the noise of
+battle the witch-woman crawled by night among the dead to find her lord
+lying with one arm thrown carelessly over his dead horse's neck. It was
+there, companioned only by the dead, that the witch-woman's twins--a boy
+and a girl--were born. And it pleased their mother's grim humour to
+creep about the battlefield in the darkness until she found banners and
+trappings of the Southrons, whom she hated, to act as birth-clothes for
+her son and daughter when she carried them back mile after mile to
+brooding Lashnagar. It was the boy who was Marcella's ancestor.
+
+Lashnagar was her nursery. On Lashnagar she had seen queer things. One
+night, when everyone was asleep and the path of the full moon lay
+shining across the sea, she went up on to Lashnagar with the shadows of
+the flowering henbane clean-cut and inky about her feet. Half-way up a
+great jagged hole lay gashed. Peering into it--she had never seen it
+before--she could distinguish the crumbling turret of a church, the roof
+of a house and the stiff tops of trees buried partly in a soft sea of
+sand in the middle of which was a depression. The heathery ground on
+which she kneeled began to crack very gently, and, with beating heart,
+she started back, realizing that the hillside was hollow, formed here of
+rotted trees thinly overgrown with turf and sand. Next morning she heard
+that a shepherd was missing, and then she guessed with horror the
+meaning of the chasm and the soft depression.
+
+Next day she went back to gaze fascinated at the hole, only to find that
+already the dry sand had almost filled it, quite covering the cracked
+place where she had kneeled, the turret and the roof. She told no one
+but Hunchback Wullie, an old man who tended the green-wood fires in the
+huts on the beach, where fish were cured. Excepting her mother, he was
+Marcella's only friend--he it was who had soaked her mind in the legends
+of Lashnagar and the hills around; he it was who had taught her the
+beautiful things learnt by those who grow near to the earth and humble
+living things.
+
+She ran down the hillside to him that day, her eyes--the blue-grey eyes
+of her people--wide with horror, her long, straight, fair hair, that she
+wore in two Marguerite plaits, loosened and swinging in the wind.
+Hunchback Wullie was in the first hut, threading the herrings through
+their gills on the long strings that went from side to side high up
+under the roof. His ruddy brown beard glistered with the shining scales
+of the fish, for he had a habit of standing by the hut door looking out
+to sea and stroking his beard, when another man would have smoked and
+rested.
+
+"Things never come tae an ending, lassie," he said, his little red-brown
+eyes looking out over the grey water. "Either for good or for ill
+they're always gaun on. They may be quiet like Lashnagar for years, an'
+then something crops out--like yon crumbling last night that killed
+young Colin. But it's not always evil that crops out, mind ye."
+
+Marcella did not go on Lashnagar again for months. The next time Wullie
+was with her, and half-way up the incline they found apple blossom
+growing about one foot from the ground on a little sapling with a
+crabbed, thick trunk.
+
+"Why, look at that little apple tree, Wullie--how brave of it! I'm going
+to root it up and take it to my garden. It can never live here in the
+sand and the wind."
+
+Wullie sat down and watched her, smiling a little and stroking his beard
+as she dug with her hands in the friable soil. For a long time she dug,
+but the sapling went deeper and deeper, and at last she sat down hot and
+tired.
+
+"D'ye ken what ye're daein', lassie?" he said, looking at the pink and
+white bloom reflectively. "Ye're diggin' doon intae death! Yon flooer's
+the reaping of a seedtime many a hundred years gone by. If ye was tae
+dig doon an' doon all the day ye'd find yon apple tree buried deep i'
+th' sand. The last time it fruited was afore Flodden, when Lashcairns
+were kings--"
+
+"What, Wullie, a poor old tree buried all those years, pushing up to
+light like this? How could it?" said Marcella, staring at it fascinated.
+
+"I've tauld ye afore, Marcella. There's no ending tae things! Sometimes
+the evil comes cropping oot, like when men get caught an' buried on
+Lashnagar. Sometimes it's something bonny, like yon flooer. Yon apple
+was meant to live an' bear fruit; the bonny apple's juist the
+makeweight. It's the seed that matters all the time--the life that
+slides along the tree's life. Yon tree was buried before its seedtime,
+and all these years it struggled, up an' up, till it broke through into
+the light of the sun. Like God strugglin' at the end through a man's
+flesh--"
+
+Marcella stared at him: Wullie often talked like this, and she only
+understood very vaguely what he meant. But she could grasp the idea of
+something trying to struggle through desperately, and looked pityingly
+at the little frail plume of blossom.
+
+"And after all these years, to struggle through on this bleak hill! Poor
+little tree!" she said.
+
+"That happens often to folk's lives. They come struggling through tae
+something very rough and hard. But it's the struggling that matters. Yon
+tree may only have one fruit that will seed. And so life goes on--"
+
+He stroked his beard and stared over the sea to where the brown-sailed
+herring boats of his brother and his nephew were coming in through the
+morning sunlight.
+
+"It's a bit sad, isn't it?" Marcella said dreamily. "It seems hard on
+the tree somehow, Wullie. Just as if the poor tree was only a path for
+the new tree to walk along--"
+
+"Well, that's all life is--a path for other life to walk along."
+
+"I wish you'd explain better, Wullie," she said, staring from him to the
+plant.
+
+"Explaining's never any use, lassie. Folks have to live things to find
+them out." He stood up slowly. "There's the boats comin' in, an' I must
+get on back to the huts. Ye'll learn, Marcella--ye'll come tae it some
+day that ye're only a path yerself for things to walk along--"
+
+"Wullie--_what_ things?" she demanded.
+
+"Other folks, maybe. Maybe God," he said, and went off to the huts.
+
+Overcome by the pathos of the little hopeful tree, Marcella carried
+baskets of soil from the farm and pots of water to lay them round about
+it. She planted stakes round it to keep off the force of the wind. But
+that year the flowering bore no fruit. And Wullie smiled at her attempts
+to help the tree.
+
+"The roots are doon too deep, lassie," he said. "Sae deep ye canna reach
+them. There's little ye can dae for tree or man, Marcella, but juist not
+hinder them. All we can do, the best of us, is to put a bit of soil an'
+watter half-way up a tree trunk an' hope we're feeding the roots--"
+
+"Then what can anyone do?" she said, looking at the pitiful little
+tree, stripped now of its leaves in the autumn chill.
+
+"I tauld ye--juist not hinder. An' lie as quiet as ye can because ye're
+a path--"
+
+It was in this way that Marcella got her education. Most of the time
+Wullie talked above her head save when he told her of the habits of
+animals and plants, of the winds and the seasons. Her mother, before she
+was too ill, had taught her to read and that was all. Even her mother,
+drawn in upon herself with pain, talked above her head most of the time,
+too. The girl turned herself loose in the big room at the farm where
+books were stored and there she spent days on end when the weather was
+too wild to be braved. It was a queer collection of books. All Scott's
+novels were there; she found in them an enchanted land. She lived them,
+she fed on them. She never read herself into the woman's part in them.
+Only Jeannie Deans really met her requirements as a "part" and she left
+much to be desired in the way of romance and beauty. Most often she was
+young Lochinvar or Rob Roy; sometimes Coeur de Lion led her on
+full-blooded adventure. There were quaint old books of Norse and Keltic
+legend, musty, leather-bound books with wood-cut illustrations and long
+"s's" in the printing. There was Fox's Book of Martyrs: there were many
+tales of the Covenanters, things hard, austere and chill.
+
+One summer a young student came to the farm for the harvest. He was a
+peasant lad, a penniless bursary student at Edinburgh University. In the
+Long Vacation, he worked at his native farming, reading voraciously all
+the time and feeding sparingly, saving his wages against the coming
+bleak winter in his fireless attic in an Edinburgh wynd. He talked to
+Marcella, dogmatically, prodigiously, unanswerably. On her legends and
+fairy-tales and poetry he poured contempt. He read the "Riddle of the
+Universe" and the "Kritic of Pure Reason," orating them to Marcella as
+they worked together in the harvest field. She did not even understand
+their terminology. He had a quite unreasoning belief in the stolidly
+utilitarian of German philosophers and laid siege to Marcella's
+mysticism, but after he went back one day she discovered a box of her
+mother's poetry books and so Tennyson, Shelley and Keats shone into her
+life and, reading an ancient copy of "David and Bethsaibe," she gathered
+that the Bible Aunt Janet read sourly had quite human possibilities.
+This box of books was her first glimpse of a world that was not a long
+tale of stern fights; it was her first glimpse of something softly
+sensuous instead of austere and natural and passionate.
+
+Marcella never knew quite how her folks came to live at the farm; it had
+happened when she was three years old and she took for granted her world
+of crumbling, decayed splendours. Hunchback Wullie had told her that
+the old grey house on Ben Grief used to be her home, and that the lands
+all about had belonged to her father. But they were his no longer and
+she was forbidden to pass the old grey house, or even to speak of it.
+
+Andrew Lashcairn, Aunt Janet, two women servants and a man who never
+seemed to have any wages for their work lived with Marcella at the farm.
+The man and Aunt Janet planted things in the garden, but on the poor
+land, among the winds they never grew very well. Oats grew, thin and
+tough, in the fields, and were ground to make the daily porridge;
+sometimes one of the skinny fowls that picked and pecked its hungry way
+through life round about the cattle pen and the back door was killed for
+a meal; sometimes Marcella ran miles away up Ben Grief when one of the
+lean pigs screamed its life out in a stream of blood in the yard. She
+used to feel sorry for the beasts about the farm; the cows seemed to
+have such huge, gaunt bodies and looked at her with such mournful eyes
+when she went through the croft in which they were eating the scanty
+grass. The two old horses who did the ploughing and the harvesting
+had ribs that she could count, that felt sharp when she stroked their
+patient sides. The cows lowed a great deal--very plaintively and deep;
+the pigs squealed hungrily every time a pail clattered in the kitchen or
+steps passed their sty door.
+
+One dreadful day they squealed all the time while Marcella's little
+English mother lay on her couch in the window that looked over
+Lashnagar, and cried. She had lain on this couch for nearly two years
+now, whiter and thinner every day. Marcella adored her and used to kiss
+her white, transparent hands, and call her by the names of queens and
+goddesses in the legends she had read, trying to stretch her own ten
+years of experience to match her mother's thirty-five so that she could
+be her friend. And this day when Rose Lashcairn cried because the beasts
+were crying with hunger and there was no food for them, Marcella thought
+of Jeannie Deans and Coeur de Lion and Sir Galahad. Buckling on her
+armour in the shape of an old coat made of the family plaid, and a Tam
+o' Shanter, she went out to do battle for the helpless creatures who
+were hungry, and stop her mother's tears.
+
+It was a three-mile walk to the little town. There was a corn factor's
+shop there at which her father dealt. She walked in proudly. It was
+market day and the place was full of people.
+
+"Andrew Lashcairn says ye'll please to be sending up a sack of meal and
+a sack of corn the day," she said calmly to the factor who looked at her
+between narrowing eyes. The factor was a man imported to the district:
+he had not the feudal habit of respect for decayed lordship.
+
+"Indeed he does? And why disna Andrew Lashcairn come tae dae his own
+begging?"
+
+Marcella stared at him and her eyes flashed with indignation though her
+knees were trembling.
+
+"He is not begging, Mr. Braid. But the beasts are crying for food and
+he's needin' the corn the night."
+
+The people in the shop stopped talking about prices and listened
+greedily. They knew what Marcella did not.
+
+"Then ye'll tell him tae go on needin'. When he's paid for the last
+sack, an' the one afore that, he'll be gettin' more."
+
+"But of course he'll pay," she cried. "My father is busy, and he can't
+mind things always. If you ask him, he'll pay."
+
+The man laughed.
+
+"He will, fine he will! No, Mistress Marcella, ye can tell yer father
+not tae go sendin' children beggin' for credit whiles he hugs his bar'l.
+The corn's here safe enough when he chooses to pay for't."
+
+Marcella went homewards, her mind a maelstrom of conflict. She knew
+nothing about money; it had never occurred to her that her father had
+none, and the cryptic allusion to the "bar'l" was even more puzzling.
+She knew that her father was a man to be feared, but he had always been
+the same; she expected nothing else of him, or of fathers generally. She
+knew that he lived most of his time in the little room looking out on
+Lashnagar and she had certainly seen the "bar'l"--a thirty-six gallon
+barrel being taken into that room. She did not know that it held whisky;
+if she had known, it would have conveyed nothing to her. She knew that
+the green baize door leading to the passage from which her father's room
+opened must never be approached; she knew that her father had frequent
+fits of Berserk rage when the little English mother cowered and fainted
+and things were smashed to splinters. In one such rage, when Marcella
+was seven years old, he had seen her staring and frowning at him, and
+the rage he always felt against her because she, the last of his race,
+was a girl and not a boy, had crystallized. That time he had flung her
+across the room, breaking her thin little arm. She remembered ever
+afterwards how he had picked her up, suddenly quietened, and set and
+bandaged the arm without the suspicion of tenderness or apology or
+shame, but with cool skill. All the time she heard his teeth grinding,
+and watched his red-rimmed grey eyes blazing. She gathered that he
+considered his women-folk belonged to him, and that he could break their
+arms at will.
+
+Other things she remembered, too--cries in the night from her mother's
+room when she had been a tiny mite and thought they were the cries of
+banshees or ghosts; she remembered a terrible time nearly three years
+ago when she must not sit on her mother's knee and lay her head on her
+breast because of cruel pain there; she remembered the frightening scene
+there had been when surgeons had come and stayed in her mother's room
+for hours; how they had gone past her where she cowered in the passage,
+smelling a queer, sweet, choking smell that came out when they opened
+the door. In the book room she had heard raised voices when the
+Edinburgh surgeon had said, "In my opinion it was caused by a blow--it
+cannot have come in that particular position except by injury--a blow,
+Mr. Lashcairn."
+
+There had been a Berserk rage then, and violence before which the
+doctors had been driven away.
+
+All these things Marcella remembered during her lonely three-mile walk
+in the winter twilight, and for the first time they co-ordinated with
+other things, broke through her mist of dream and legend and stood out
+stark like the summit of Ben Grief.
+
+That night she was more than usually tender to her mother. Kneeling
+beside her bed, she put her strong young arms under the bedclothes and
+held her very tight. Through her nightgown she felt very frail--Marcella
+could touch the sharp bones, and thought of the poor starved cows.
+
+"My queen, my beautiful," she whispered in her mother's ear. "I'm going
+to be Siegfried and save you from the dragon--I'm going to take you
+away, darling--pick you right up in my arms and run away with you--"
+
+She stopped, choked by her intensity, while her mother stroked her
+ruffled hair and smiled faintly.
+
+"You can't take people up in your arms and snatch them out of life,
+childie," she said. And then they kissed good night.
+
+As she went to her little cold room Marcella heard the padding of feet
+outside in the croft, and grunts and squeals. The hungry beasts, as a
+last resort, had been turned loose to pick up some food in the
+frost-stiffened grass; incredulous of the neglect they haunted the
+farm-house, the pigs lively and protestant, the cows solemn and pathetic
+and patient. Marcella had taken her piece of oatcake and cheese at
+supper-time out to the door. But it was no use to the beasts. The little
+black pig gobbled it in a mouthful and squealed for more. In her agony
+of pity something dawned on her.
+
+"I suppose," she said to herself, as she stood shivering, looking over
+rimed Lashnagar, "that Jesus was as sorry for His disciples as I am for
+these poor beasts. He knew they'd be so hungry when He had gone away
+from them. So He gave them His body and blood--it was all He had to
+give."
+
+She got into bed, but the thought stayed with her. It was to come back
+again many years afterwards, illuminating.
+
+That night she heard steps about the house--her father's heavy
+steps--but she felt tired, and fell asleep. It was midnight when her
+father opened her door and came into the room.
+
+"Marcella, are you asleep?" he said in his beautiful voice that always
+made her wish he would let her love him.
+
+"No," she said, starting to wakefulness.
+
+"You've no mother now, Marcella," he said, and turned away. She heard
+him stalk heavily up the passage.
+
+When she ran along after him Aunt Janet was holding a hand-mirror over
+her mother's mouth and looking at it carefully. She had red-rimmed eyes.
+Marcella stood still, staring, and thought how white her mother's ear
+was against the faded blue of her old flannel jacket over which her
+long black hair lay in two long plaits. Then her father came in and sent
+her down to the village for the old woman who attended to the births and
+deaths of people. She went over the croft, among the hungry cows that
+stared at her, one after one as she passed. Later, when the woman had
+gone, and the two servant women were crying in the kitchen while they
+drank scalding tea and spilt it down their aprons from trembling hands,
+Andrew Lashcairn and Aunt Janet sat in the book-room with all Rose
+Lashcairn's papers spread out before them. Marcella sat for a while
+watching.
+
+There were letters, smelling of the lavender and rue that lay among
+them. They were tied in little bundles with lavender ribbons. There were
+little thin books of poetry, a few pressed flowers, a few ribbons that
+had decked Baby Marcella, a tiny shirt of hers, a little shoe, a
+Confirmation book. All these they threw into the fire, and read some big
+crackling papers with seals and stamps upon them. Then Marcella crept
+away along the passages through which the wind whistled while the rats,
+hungry as everything else about Lashnagar, scuttled behind the
+wainscotings.
+
+She opened her mother's door. A candle was burning on the table by the
+bedside. A sheet covered the bed. Underneath it she could trace the
+outline of her mother's body. As she came across the room, walking
+softly, as she always did, to avoid the loose board that had so often
+jerked her mother back to wakefulness and pain, it seemed to her that
+all the loving kindness of the world had gone from her. From then until
+her mother was buried she never left her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+After his wife's death Andrew Lashcairn was harder, colder. Fits of
+glowering depression took the place of rage, and he never went behind
+the green baize door, though the barrel stayed there. He seemed to have
+conceived the idea of making Marcella strong; perhaps he was afraid that
+she would be frail as her mother had been; perhaps he tried to persuade
+himself that her mother's illness and death were constitutional frailty
+rather than traumatic, and in pursuance of this self-deception he tried
+to suggest that Marcella had inherited her delicacy and must be
+hardened. Divorced from his den and his barrel by his own will-power he
+had to find something to do. And he undertook Marcella as an interest in
+life.
+
+Things were going a little better at the farm because of Rose
+Lashcairn's money: more cows came, and sacks of meal and corn
+replenished the empty coffers in the granary. Marcella still divided
+her time when she could between the book-room, Lashnagar and Wullie's
+smoking-hut; but every morning Andrew Lashcairn tore her out of bed at
+five o'clock and went with her through snows and frosts, and, later,
+through the fresh spring mornings to teach her to swim in the wild
+breakers of the North Sea. Many a girl would have died; Marcella proved
+herself more a child of the Lashcairns than of her little English mother
+by living and thriving on it. Her father sent her to work in the fields
+with the men, but forbade her to speak to any of the village women who
+worked there, telling her to remember that her folks were kings when
+theirs were slaves. One night, when the snow drifted in from Lashnagar
+on to her bed, she closed her window, and he, with a half return of the
+old fury, pushed it out, window-frame and all. Ever after that Marcella
+slept in a cave of winds. It never occurred to her to rebel against her
+father. She accepted the things done to her body with complete docility.
+Over the things that happened to her mind her father could have no
+control.
+
+But his Spartan training had a queer effect upon her. Always meagrely
+fed, always knowing the very minimum of comfort, she became oblivious to
+food or comfort for herself; she became unconscious, independent of her
+body save as a means of locomotion, but she cared immensely for other
+people's. She shivered to think of Wullie's brother Tammas and his son
+Jock out fishing in the night with icy salt water pouring over chafed
+hands, soaking through their oilskins; she cried after a savagely silent
+meal of herrings and oatcake when she had not noticed what she was
+eating, to think of the villagers with nothing but herrings and
+oatcakes. She hated to think of things hungry, things in pain. She even
+felt a great, inarticulate pity for her father. For all his striding
+autocracy and high-handedness there was something naive and childish
+about him that clutched at her heart. He was like Ben Grief, alone and
+bare when the winds tore.
+
+He was thorough, was Andrew Lashcairn. Finding the young student's
+"Riddle of the Universe" in the book-room one day he read it idly. It
+started him on a course of philosophy in which he determined to include
+Marcella. From Edinburgh came boxes of books--and a queer assortment of
+books they were. Locke and Berkeley, James' "Natural Religion," Renan's
+"Life of Christ," a very bad translation of Lucretius; Frazer's "Golden
+Bough," a good deal of Huxley and Darwin, and many of the modern
+writers. They were something amazingly new to him, and Marcella used to
+watch him sitting in the fireless book-room with a candle flickering
+while the wind soughed round the house and in through every chink in the
+worn walls. His fine grey eyes were deep sunken; when he looked up
+suddenly there was sometimes a little light of madness in them that made
+her recoil instinctively; his thick hair was greyish, whitening over the
+temples; his high Keltic cheekbones were gaunter than ever, his forehead
+and mouth lined with past rages. He had never held a religion--the
+Lashcairn religion had been a jumble of superstition, ancestor-worship
+and paganism on which a Puritan woman marrying a Lashcairn in the
+middle seventeenth century had grafted her dour faith. It had
+flourished--something hard and dictatorial about it found good soil
+on the Lashcairn stock.
+
+So modern Rationalism had a stern fight with Andrew, struggling with the
+madness of the Kelt, the dourness of the Puritan. It held him for a year
+and no more, for a thing unemotional could not grip a thing so
+excitable. In that year Marcella was bidden read all the books her
+father read, and believe them. When she evaded them she was forced to
+read them aloud, with a dictionary at her side, and discuss them
+intelligently with him. If she answered at random, with her heart and
+her eyes away at the huts with Wullie, he would throw at her head the
+nearest thing that came to his hand--a book, a faggot of wood, a cup of
+tea--or order her to bed without any food. Marcella had to follow him
+on these excursions into philosophic doubt, sacrificing her pet calf
+of legend and poetry every day in the temple of Rimmon, handcuffed to
+him as she did it. But Andrew Lashcairn did everything with such
+thoroughness that he seemed to use up a certain set of cells in his
+brain exhaustively, and thus procure revulsion. A man who can drink half
+a gallon of whisky a day for years consistently, and stop without a
+moment's notice, can do most things. Andrew took Rationalism as he took
+whisky; he forced it upon his household.
+
+In all this time her chief joy was to be found in writing long letters
+to her dead mother, whom she imagined to be living somewhere between the
+sunshine and the rain, an immanent presence. These letters she burnt
+usually, though sometimes she made little boats of them and floated them
+out to sea, and sometimes she pushed them into the shifting sands
+through fissures on Lashnagar. They comforted her strangely; they were
+adoration and love crystallized. Her only friendliness came from
+Hunchback Wullie, when she could escape from the book-room and run down
+to his hut.
+
+It was a hard winter, this winter of philosophic doubt for souls and
+bodies both. The wild gales kept the fishing-boats at home; the wild
+weather had played havoc with the harvests, and often Marcella knew that
+Wullie was hungry, though he never told her so. Whenever she went to the
+hut she would manage to be absent from a meal beforehand, and going to
+Jean, would ask for her ration of whatever was going. Down in the hut
+she and Wullie would sit round the fire of driftwood, reaching down
+dried herrings from the roof and toasting them on spits of wood for
+their feast. And they would talk while the sea crept up and down outside
+whispering, or dashed almost at the door shrieking.
+
+One night as they sat toasting their fish and watching the salt
+driftwood splutter and crackle with blue flames, Marcella asked
+Wullie what he thought of philosophic doubt.
+
+"I've been reading a book to father to-day, Wullie, that says we are all
+unreal--that we are not here really, but only a dream."
+
+Wullie sat back a little, turned the fish on his spit without speaking,
+and then said:
+
+"Well, maybe we are. Maybe all life's a dream. But all the same it is a
+dream dreamed by God."
+
+"I think that's what the book says, but they use such hard words."
+
+"I wouldna fash, lassie. There's not much we do understand, any of us.
+That's where I think books fall short--they explain things just as far
+as the writer understands. And whiles he doesna understand very far, but
+he's got a trick of putting things nicely. Most things you know without
+understanding: you do them blindly and someday you see they've been
+right. That's what I mean about God making us a pathway. I feel that He
+has been walking along my life; I couldna prove it to ye, Marcella. But
+one day He'll suddenly turn round when He gets to the end of me and
+smile and thank me for carrying Him along a bit."
+
+"I like to know things beforehand," she objected.
+
+"Ye winna. Right at the end ye'll be able to look down yer life and see
+the shining marks of His feet all over ye. An' the more ye struggle and
+fuss the less He can take hold of ye, and get a grup on ye with His
+feet--"
+
+"I'd like to feel sure they were God's, and not any other sort of feet,"
+she said slowly, leaving her fish to go cold, though she was very
+hungry.
+
+"Ye'll find, at the end, Marcella, that there's no feet but God's can
+make shining marks on your life. Other things will walk over ye. They
+may leave marks of mud, or scars. But the footsteps of God will burn
+them all off in the end. I canna prove it, Marcella. But ye'll see it
+some day. D'ye mind yon apple that came flooering up through Lashnagar?"
+
+Marcella nodded. It had borne fruit two years now.
+
+"It knew nothing: it was just still and quiet when something told it to
+push on. And then life came along it--like a path. If it had known, it
+couldna help the life any--"
+
+She nodded again. She felt she understood now.
+
+At the end of the year things began to go badly again at the farm. The
+money was almost exhausted; the oat crop failed and one of the cows was
+lost on Lashnagar, where she had been tempted by hunger to find more
+food. One of the serving women, falling ill, went to Edinburgh to be
+cured and never came back; paint, blistered and scarred from the doors
+and window frames by the weather, was not replaced; the holes gnawed and
+torn by the hungry rats in wainscot and floor were never patched and
+food was more scarce than ever. Aunt Janet sat, a dourly silent ghost,
+while Marcella read to Andrew, listening sickly to the beasts clamouring
+for their scanty meals. And one night, when he had been out alone along
+Ben Grief and seen his lands and his old grey house, Lashcairn the
+Landless, as they called him, went back to his barrel.
+
+For three days he lived behind the green baize door. On the fourth he
+came out with his red-rimmed eyes ablaze, his gaunt face pinched, his
+hair bedraggled. And that night a little old man, Rose's cousin from
+Winchester, came to see them. He had never seen the mad family into
+which his cousin had married; he had not seen her since she was a gentle
+little thing in pinafores, with a great family of wax dolls. He did not
+know that she was dead. Aunt Janet made no explanations; his small black
+eyes took in all the decay and famine of the place; his neat black
+Sabbatical coat looked queerly out of place in the book-room with its
+scarred oak refectory table, its hard oak chairs and its dusty banner
+hung from the ceiling above where Andrew Lashcairn sat. When his host
+came into the room he pulled himself to his full five feet five and his
+thin white face went even whiter. Andrew, in his frenzy, cursed him and
+God and the world, and, in the old Berserk rage, dashed over the heavy
+table on which Aunt Janet had set a poor meal for the stranger.
+
+It was a wild, bizarre picture; the fire, fanned by the fierce winds
+that swept down the open chimney, kept sending out puffs of smoke that
+went like grey wraiths about the room; the top of the table rutted by
+hundreds of years' fierce feeding; the shattered crockery and
+forlorn-looking mess of food on the floor. Aunt Janet and Marcella
+shrunk away--her father never got one of his rages but the girl felt
+old agony in her broken arm--but the little white-faced cousin stood in
+front of Andrew's gaunt frame, which seemed twice his size.
+
+"What's the matter, Cousin Andrew?" he asked mildly. Then, turning to
+the others, he said gently: "Go away for a little while. I'll have a
+talk with Andrew about little Rose."
+
+They went away with Andrew's curses following them along the windy
+passage. Marcella waited in sympathy with the little man's arms, but
+after a while a murmur of normal conversation came from the room and
+went on until two o'clock in the morning. At last the little old cousin
+came to where Marcella and Aunt Janet shivered in the kitchen, and said
+simply:
+
+"Andrew has cast his burden on the Lord, and now he can go on his way
+singing."
+
+Marcella began to cry from sheer nervousness. She had not the faintest
+idea what the cousin meant, but she was to know it as time went by. For
+Andrew got religion as he got everything else--very thoroughly--and,
+just as he had superimposed Rationalism on his house and bent it before
+his whisky furies, now he tried to religionize it.
+
+After two days the cousin went away and never came again. Almost it
+seemed as though he had never been, for he wrote not at all, simply
+going his serene, white-faced way through their lives for two days and
+two nights and dropping out of them. Marcella, telling Wullie about it,
+received his explanation.
+
+"It's what I tauld ye afore, lassie. We're not things or people, really.
+We're juist paths."
+
+"Was it God who came along that night?" asked Marcella doubtfully.
+Wullie thought it was. But she found her father's religion even more
+difficult than any of his other obsessions. It made him eager and
+pathetic. He had never tried to make drunkards of people; Marcella he
+had impatiently tried to make a rationalist; but now he spent all his
+time trying to convert them. His household was veneered with evangelism.
+The kindly desire to save brands from the burning sent him to the
+village praying and quoting the Word to those who once thought him a
+king, later a terror, and now could not understand him. Men coming from
+the fields and the boats were asked questions about their peace with
+God, and in the little chapel where once the Covenanters had met, Andrew
+Lashcairn's voice was raised in prayers and exhortations so long and so
+burning that he often emptied the place even of zealots before he had
+tired himself and God.
+
+All the time Marcella ached with pity for him now that she feared him no
+longer. He seemed so naive, so wistful to her, this strange father whom
+she could never understand, but who seemed like a child very keen on a
+game of make-believe. Things went from bad to worse, but they sat down
+to their meal of oatcake and milk uncomplaining, after a long grace. It
+was never the way of the Lashcairns to notice overmuch the demands of
+the body. And now they sat by the almost bare refectory table, and none
+of them would mention hunger; Andrew did not feel it. His zeal fed him.
+Marcella, however, took to going down oftener to the huts and always
+Wullie, who sensed these things, toasted fish--three or four at a
+time--over the embers, and roasted potatoes in the bed of ashes.
+
+It was in the summer following this last obsession that Andrew was taken
+suddenly ill. One evening, praying with blazing ardour for the souls of
+the whole world, consciousness of unbearable weight came upon him.
+Standing in the little chapel he felt that he was being pressed to his
+knees and there, with a terrible voice, he cried:
+
+"Yes, Lord, put all the weight of Thy cross upon me, Thy poor
+servant--Thy Simon of Cyrene who so untimely, so unhelpfully hath found
+Thee."
+
+Those watching believed that they saw the black shadow of a cross laid
+over his bowed shoulders. But then, like Andrew, they were Kelts who
+could see with eyes that were not apparent. Andrew was carried home to
+his bed, and Dr. Angus, the same doctor he had driven forth in violence
+from his wife's sickness, came to him.
+
+Thorough in body as in soul, Andrew seemed called upon to bear all the
+woes of the world. Sometimes, watching him lying there with closed eyes
+and lips that moved faintly as he prayed for courage, Marcella wished
+she could see him once again come tearing into the room in a passion
+of destruction. His gentleness, his pathos, and the way he talked so
+quietly to God with his beautiful voice, almost tore her in two with
+pity.
+
+Many nights his illness made it impossible for him to lie down, and then
+he would stand, wrapped in a blanket--for his dressing-gown had long
+since been torn to shreds--his hands clutching the post of his ancient
+bed, his eyes gazing deeply at the faded sun in splendour on the
+tapestry back of the bed while he read slowly the old boastful motto,
+"By myself I stand." And the girl, lying on a little couch where she
+took turns with Aunt Janet in nursing him through the night, would hear
+him talking to God by the hour.
+
+"Not by myself, O Lord, but in Thy might. Thou art my Rock and my
+Fortress, my Defence on my right hand, my strong shield in whom I
+trust--"
+
+Silence--except for the grating of rats in the ceiling as they tried to
+gnaw the beams, and the moaning of the wind. Then the musical voice
+would say, with infinite tenderness:
+
+"He hath said thy foot shall not be moved. Thy keeper shall never, never
+slumber nor sleep. O Lord, I am not asking Thee a very great thing, for
+already Thou hast done wondrous things for me. This is a little thing, O
+Thou that never sleepest! Give me ten minutes' rest, ten minutes' sleep.
+To Thee a thousand years are but as yesterday. To me, O Lord, in this
+weariness, a night is as a thousand years."
+
+Helped by Marcella he would clamber into bed again, shutting his eyes,
+waiting on the Lord, only to start up as the pumping of his worn-out,
+strained heart almost choked him. And then, leaning back on heaped
+pillows he would look out through the dark window and say, very humbly:
+
+"Most patient hast Thou been with me, Oh Lord, when Thou wast seeking
+me so far. Most patient must I be with Thee--I, who have no claim upon
+Thy mercy save Thy own most holy kindliness to me."
+
+And so the night would wear on; sometimes he would talk to God,
+sometimes to Marcella, telling her how he had hated her because she was
+not a boy and seemed, to his great strength, too much like her frail
+English mother to be of any use in the world.
+
+"We're a great folk, we Lashcairns, Marcella," he would say, his sunken
+eyes brightening. "A great name, Marcella. I wanted you Janet, for
+there has always been a Janet Lashcairn since the wild woman came to
+Lashnagar. But Rose would have you Marcella--a foreign name to us," and
+he sighed heavily. "I hated you, Marcella, because I wanted a boy to win
+back everything we have lost. Lashcairn the Landless whose lands
+stretched once from--Marcella, what am I saying? O Lord, Thou knowest
+that in nothing do I glory save in the Cross of Jesus Christ. O Lord,
+Simon of Cyrene, Thy cross-bearer, has naught to boast save only the
+burden Thy grace has laid upon him. Be patient with me, O Lord--very
+hardly dies the vanity of the flesh."
+
+Andrew was always glad when it was Marcella's turn to stay with him at
+night, for he liked her to read to him; she read the epistles of Paul
+especially and F.W.H. Myers' "St. Paul" until she knew them almost by
+heart. In St. Paul Andrew saw much of himself: especially could he see
+himself on the Damascus road when a blinding light came down.
+
+Three of the five cows were sold to buy the medicines and the patent
+foods he did not seem to notice. Duncan, the farm man who never got any
+wages, went out at night to work with Jock and Tammas in their boat, and
+at every month end he handed to Aunt Janet the money he got to buy
+things for his master. Though he was on his bed Andrew did not forget
+his proselytising and Duncan and Jean were brought into the bedroom
+every night while Marcella read the New Testament, and her father
+prayed. He prayed for her soul and the souls of Duncan and Jean;
+Marcella would kneel between the two of them, with the smell of the
+fish from Duncan and the scent of the byres from Jean's shoes and her
+clothes stealing round her while her father prayed. She was bewildered
+by him: very often, when he prayed long and she was falling asleep after
+her wakeful night, she would feel impatient with him, especially when he
+prayed loud and long that she might be brought to a conviction of sin.
+He puzzled her unendurably; sometimes her old docility to his autocracy
+made her feel that she really must be the miserable sinner he pictured
+her. Sometimes her common sense told her she could not be. Then, on top
+of the impatience and revolt, would come aching pity for his weakness,
+his tenderness to God, the apologies he made for God who was so hard, so
+just in His dealings with him.
+
+He seemed often to resent his illness bitterly; he had never known
+anything but an almost savage strength. Now he lay watching his illness
+with a curious mixture of fierce resentment and proprietorial pride. He
+spent a good deal of his time trying to think of ways in which he could
+circumvent the choking sensation that often came to him. Marcella
+brought some comfort by placing the kitchen ironing board across the
+bed, resting on the backs of two chairs so that he could lean forward on
+it. Sometimes he slept so, his grey head jerking forward and backward in
+his weariness.
+
+One night, when he could not sleep, he got out of bed and, leaning
+on Marcella's shoulders, began to walk about. The moon was rising
+desolately over Lashnagar, and he stood for a long time in the window
+looking at the dead waste of it all. Suddenly he shivered.
+
+"Father, ye're cold," said Marcella quickly. "Let me put on your socks.
+It's a shame of me to let you stand barefoot so long."
+
+He sat down on the deep window-seat, and the moonlight streamed in upon
+his feet as she knelt beside him.
+
+"Why, you are getting fat, father," she said. "I can hardly get your
+socks on! And I thought your face looked thinner to-day. What a good
+thing--if you get fat."
+
+"Fat, Marcella?" he said in a strange, faint voice. "That's what the
+doctor's been expecting. It's the last lap!"
+
+"What do you mean, father? Isn't it better for you to be getting fat
+now?"
+
+He smiled a little and, bending down, pressed his fingers on the
+swollen ankle. The indentations stayed there. She thought of the soft
+depression on Lashnagar where the young shepherd had gone down.
+
+"We'll just walk about a bit, Marcella," he said, his hand pressing
+heavily on her shoulder. "I thought my legs felt very tired and heavy.
+This is the last lap of the race. When my hands get fat like that my
+heart will be drowned, Marcella."
+
+"Father, what _do_ you mean?" she cried frantically, but he told her
+nothing. There were no medical books in the house which she could read.
+She had to be content, as Wullie had said, to go on to the end knowing
+nothing, while things trod along her life.
+
+"It's a damned sort of death, Marcella, for a Lashcairn. Lying in
+bed--getting stiffer and heavier--and in the end drowned. We like to go
+out fighting, Marcella, killing and being killed. Did I ever tell you of
+Tammas Lashcairn and how he tore a wolf to pieces in the old grey house
+on Ben Grief?"
+
+He talked quickly and strangely, disjointed talk out of which she wove
+wild tales of the deaths of her people in the past.
+
+After he had got back into bed and she stooped over him, trying to chafe
+warmth into his cold feet, he looked at her more kindly than he had ever
+looked before.
+
+"All my life I have cursed you because you were a girl. I cursed your
+mother because she gave me no son. And now I thank God that you are not
+a man, to carry on the old name."
+
+"Why, father?" she asked, her eyes frightened and puzzled.
+
+"The Lord deals righteously. I shall sleep now," was all he said.
+
+It was Wullie who told her what her father had meant. They were up on
+Ben Grief watching the swollen streams overflowing with melted snow and
+storm-water. Marcella looked wan and tired; her eyes were ringed with
+black shadows. As usual she was hungry, but Wullie had left potatoes
+buried under the green-wood fire, and they would feast when they got
+back.
+
+"Why is it father is glad I'm not a boy?" she asked him.
+
+It was a long time before he told her.
+
+"The Lashcairns are a wild lot, lassie--especially the men folk. They
+kill and they rule others and they drink. It's drink that's ruined them,
+because drink is the only thing they canna rule. That's the men folk I'm
+talking of. Your great-grandfather lost all his lands that lie about
+Carlossie. The old grey house and the fields all about Ben Grief and
+Lashnagar were lost by your father. All he's got now is Lashnagar and
+the farm-house. And Lashnagar canna be sold because it hasna any value.
+Else he'd have sold it, to put it in his bar'l."
+
+She said nothing. Her tired eyes looked out over the farm and the
+desolate hill, her hair, streaming in the wind, suddenly wrapped her
+face, blinding her. As she struggled with it, light came, and she turned
+to Wullie.
+
+"It was the barrel, then, that made father ill?"
+
+"It was so."
+
+"And grandfather, and his father--did they get ill, too, through the
+barrel?"
+
+He shook his head, and she snatched at his arm roughly.
+
+"Wullie, ye're to tell me. I'm telling ye ye're to tell me, Wullie. I
+never heard of them. How did they die? I shall ask father if you don't
+tell me."
+
+"Your great-grandfather killed his son in a quarrel, when your father
+was a bit laddie of four. The next day he was found dead beside his
+bar'l in the cellar."
+
+The storm-water went swirling down by their feet, brown and frothing. It
+went down and down as though Ben Grief were crying hopelessly for this
+wild people he had cradled.
+
+"I see, now, why he's glad I'm not a boy. Wullie--do all the Lashcairns
+die--like that?" and she pictured again her father waiting, as he put
+it, to be drowned in his bed while a procession of killed and killing
+ancestors seemed to glide before her eyes over the rushing water.
+
+"The men folk, yes. They canna rule themselves."
+
+"And the women?" she said sharply, realizing that she and Aunt Janet
+were all that were left.
+
+"They keep away from the bar'l."
+
+"Yes, I couldn't imagine Aunt Janet doing that," she said, smiling
+faintly. "Or me."
+
+"Some of the women rule themselves," he said tentatively. "There was
+the witch-woman first--and later there was the Puritan woman. They seem
+to mother your women between them. There's never any telling which it'll
+be."
+
+"Aunt Janet--" began Marcella.
+
+"She's ruled herself. Some of the Lashcairn women wouldna think of
+ruling themselves. Then they go after the man they need, like the
+witch-woman. And--take him."
+
+Marcella frowned.
+
+"It sends them on strange roads sometimes," said Wullie, and would say
+no more.
+
+It was Marcella's rest night, and tired as she was, she lay thinking
+long in the silence. It was a strangely windless night, but her thoughts
+went whirling as though on wings of wind. Thoughts of fate, thoughts of
+scepticism jostled each other: pictures came; she saw the apple tree
+breaking through Lashnagar; she saw a landslide many years ago on Ben
+Grief that had torn bare strange coloured rocks in the escarpment. Just
+as she fell asleep, worn out, she thought that perhaps something
+beautiful might outcrop from her family, something different, something
+transforming. And then she was too tired to think any more and went to
+sleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+The "last lap" was not a very long one; it grew in distress as the days
+went on. The worn-out heart that the Edinburgh doctor had graphically
+described as a frail glass bubble, in his attempt to make Andrew
+Lashcairn nurse his weakness, played cruel tricks with its owner. It
+choked him so that he could not lie down; it weakened him so that he
+could not stand up. He would gasp and struggle out of bed, leaning on
+Marcella so heavily that she felt she could not bear his weight for more
+than another instant. But the weight would go on, and somehow from
+somewhere she would summon strength to bear it. But after a while his
+frail strength would be exhausted, and he would have to fall back on the
+bed, fighting for breath and with every struggle increasing the sense of
+suffocation. But all the time, when his breath would let him, he would
+pray for courage--as time went on he prayed more for courage to bear his
+burden than for alleviation of it, though sometimes a Gethsemane prayer
+would be wrung from him.
+
+"O Lord," he would whisper, his trembling hand gripping the girl's arm
+until it bruised the flesh, "I am the work of Thy hands. Break me if
+Thou wilt. But give me courage not to cry out at the breaking."
+
+One night when it became impossible, because of the stiffness and
+heaviness of his swollen legs, for him to walk about, he prayed for
+death, and Marcella, forced to her knees by his passionately pleading
+eyes, sobbed at his words.
+
+"Lord, I am trying hard to be patient with Thee," he gasped. "But I am
+man and Thou art God. I cannot match Thy patience with mine. I am trying
+so hard not to cry out beneath Thy hand. But give me more courage--more
+courage, O Lord, or I must play the coward. Take Thy cup from me until
+to-morrow, when I shall have more strength to lift it to my lips--or let
+me die, Lord, rather than crack like this."
+
+Then, after a pause, words were wrung from his lips.
+
+"Justice--not mercy. I would not take mercy even from Thee. The full
+rigour of Thy law--"
+
+There was no alleviation, and Marcella, kneeling there, wished that she
+and her father could die together. The horror of helplessness was
+searing her soul.
+
+Next day came agonizing pain which made every movement a death. But the
+Edinburgh doctor who came brought relief for the pain, and, talking with
+Dr. Angus, the Carlossie doctor, mentioned, among other technicalities,
+the name of a drug--"digitalis." That afternoon Marcella went back in
+the doctor's trap to get the new medicine, and it gave relief. Whenever,
+after that, the choking came back, Andrew would cry out for digitalis,
+which seemed to him the elixir of life. Sometimes he would pray for
+courage; sometimes, cracking suddenly, he would pray for digitalis and
+send Marcella often at midnight with a pleading note to the doctor to
+give him the drug and a little soothing for his heart that was running
+away with him.
+
+Now that he could not move about he still thought of the souls of the
+people in the village, and sent a message to them, pleading with them to
+come and see him. And they, remembering him as the laird, with a sort of
+feudal obedience, came and stood about his bed, to be stormed at or
+prayed with according to Andrew's mood. But always after one of these
+missionary efforts he would suffer agonies of suffocation when he had
+forgotten, for a while, that his heart was a bubble of glass.
+
+It was an unreal world, this shadowed world of the old farm. It centred
+round Andrew Lashcairn's bed--he was its sun, its king, its autocrat
+still. But things material had slipped from him--or rather, material
+interests were all centralized in his tortured body. At first during his
+illness he had worried about the farm, sending messages to Duncan much
+more than he had done during the days when he was shut behind the green
+baize door. But now all the farm had slipped from him. He was alone with
+his body and his soul and God. Most often his soul cried out. Sometimes
+his body broke through and showed its pains and the strength of old
+desires.
+
+As he grew weaker he tried to grasp out at strength. Aunt Janet, who had
+"ruled herself" to nervelessness, had nothing of the mother, the nurse
+in her make-up; there was no tenderness in what she did for him. It was
+not that she had any spirit of getting her own back on Andrew for his
+tyranny, his impoverishment, his ill-usage of her in the past. She would
+have given him her last crumb of food if she had thought of it. But a
+thing atrophied as she was could not think or feel, and so he went
+without the small tendernesses that would have come to him had Rose, the
+soft little Englishwoman, lived. She sat up with him night after night
+patiently. She gave him milk, and she and Marcella went without it that
+he should have enough. She gave him the inevitable porridge and broth,
+but he turned away from the things he had eaten all his life in disgust.
+
+"Is there any sort of thing I could have to put a little grip into me,
+doctor?" he asked, and was ordered beef-tea, various patent foods and
+eggs, all things very difficult to come by on the stern hillside.
+
+"It seems to me, Janet, if I could have some of these foods and drugs
+they advertise so much I might get some strength to bear it," he said.
+So she got him half a dozen of the different well-advertised things to
+try. He had them arrayed on a table by his bed, and took immense
+pleasure in reminding her or Marcella when it was time for them. The
+doctor, who guessed that money was scarce, suggested that Aunt Janet
+should sell some of the old oak furniture, and to her surprise a man
+from London thought it worth while, from her description, to come all
+the way to Lashnagar to look at it. She loved it because it enshrined
+the family story; the scratches on the refectory table showed where
+heavy-clad feet had been planted as Lashcairns of old had pledged each
+other in fiery bowls. The heavy oak chairs had each a name and a
+history, but until the man from London came Aunt Janet had not realized
+their value. So they went away, taken quietly and stealthily out of the
+house for fear Andrew should know. In the book-room only a few books
+were left to keep the dusty pennant a melancholy companionship.
+
+But the patent foods and drugs did no good; they reminded Marcella
+irresistibly of the soil and water she had laid hopefully round the
+bursting apple tree. As he lay once, with all the wheels of life running
+at half rate after a sedative, he said to Marcella, who had been
+reading to him:
+
+"I feel as if I'm not in my body, Marcella. Oh, Marcella, help me to get
+a grip on my body! I can't make it do what I'm tellin' it to do! Look!"
+and he held up one gaunt arm feebly, to let it drop a minute later.
+"Look! Marcella--once I could break men with my hands!"
+
+She stared at him, choking. There was nothing she could think to say. In
+her mother's weakness her lips had overflowed with tendernesses; for her
+father she could only feel a terrified, inarticulate pity. It was not
+sympathy. She could not understand enough to sympathize. It was the same
+sort of hungry, brooding pity she used to feel for the hungry beasts on
+the farm.
+
+"Marcella, do you think if I were to eat a lot of meat I'd be stronger?"
+he asked hopefully. "Oh, make me stronger!--give me something," and
+suddenly raising himself in bed, he threw his arms about her and, with
+his grey head on her shoulder, sobbed desolately. She held him, stroking
+his head, aching to find words, but utterly dumb with terror. And when,
+later, they got him the food he craved, he could not eat it. Turning
+from it in disgust, he prayed:
+
+"There is nothing left, but only Thou, O Lord. No longer art Thou my
+shield and buckler, for no longer can I fight. Thou hast laid me very
+low, O Lord. Thou hast made me too weak to fight longer; Thou hast
+bruised me so that I cannot live save in pain; Thou hast laid me very
+low."
+
+There was a long silence. His eyes, faded from the bright blue-grey that
+used to flash with fire, were dull and almost colourless as he lay
+looking at the faded tapestry of the bed canopy.
+
+"When I pray for courage, Lord, Thou givest pain--Thou givest weakness.
+When I pray for strength Thou givest a great hunger and a sinking into
+the depths. And then in Thy loving kindness Thou givest Thy body and
+blood--for my comfort."
+
+The room grew darker. The fire flickered and spurted as the salt dried
+out of the driftwood and burnt in blue tongues of flame. Marcella
+shivered, listening to the distant beat of the sea. The house was very
+silent, with that dead silence that falls on houses where many of the
+rooms are unfurnished. The stir and clamour of the beasts outside had
+gone forever. Outside now was only one old cow, kept to give milk for
+Andrew. The barren fields lay untended, for Duncan went to the fishing
+to bring a little handful of coins to the master he feared and loved,
+and Jean went softly about the kitchen in the shadows.
+
+Suddenly Andrew spoke, and Marcella started, drawing a little nearer to
+him.
+
+"Do ye mind, Marcella, when we read yon books from Edinburgh--and you
+used to be such an idiot, and make me so mad?"
+
+"I mind it," she nodded, thinking painfully of those hard books.
+
+"There was something in one of them that I seized on with a bitter
+scorn. It was explaining how the idea of the sacrament of the Body and
+Blood of Christ had grown up. It said how savages, when they saw one of
+the tribe better than themselves, would kill him and eat him to make
+themselves as good as he. I liked that fine, Marcella. I was bitter in
+those days."
+
+"Horrible!" said Marcella with a shiver. "I like to think of the Last
+Supper, and the Holy Grail--mother used to read about it all to me--she
+used to tell me all about Parsifal and the Love Feast."
+
+"Yes, little Rose was wiser than those books. Ye see, Marcella, it
+seems to me there is a time when ye're led by something inside ye to do
+things. Like Christ was led to preach, though perhaps he didn't quite
+know why. The word was taken out of his mouth--and like I was led to yon
+barrel. Things come out of you, right out of deep inside you. Maybe
+they're God, maybe they're a beast deep down." He paused, and moved
+impatiently. "It's hard to piece thoughts together when you're weak. Can
+you finish my thought for me, Marcella? It's getting muddled--down under
+sand and stones like Castle Lashcairn under Lashnagar."
+
+Marcella hesitated. Then she told him Wullie's idea about the path.
+
+"He says other things beside God walk along our lives, but in the end
+God's footmarks burn out all the rest."
+
+Andrew nodded again and again.
+
+"I suppose Christ was a pathway. I remember reading something about
+that. 'My humanity is the path whereby men must travel to God,' but I'm
+too tired to piece it all out."
+
+"Yes. It says that in the Bible, of course. 'I am the Way--' Only I
+suppose there comes a time when God has got to the end of you, and then
+you're not a path any longer. And all that's left then is to give your
+body and blood and get out of the way of others."
+
+"Yes. I can grasp that. I feel that God has walked along me and all
+the other footmarks have gone. Now, when I am weak, and hungering for
+strength, He gives His body and blood. Yes, I think I understand
+that--in a glass darkly. Some day I'll come to it more clearly."
+
+That night, when he held out his hand for a cup of milk, Marcella
+noticed that it was swollen like his feet; the left hand was bony and
+flexible and still a little brown. The right hand was thick and puffed
+and very white. When he stretched his fingers to take the cup she saw
+that they were stiff and difficult to move. He shook his head and
+dropped his hand on to the sheet, looking at it reflectively.
+
+"The last lap is nearly done, Marcella. This poor old heart of mine will
+be drowned very soon, now."
+
+Marcella began to cry and her father looked at her as though surprised.
+Suddenly he leaned over and stroked her hair. She cried all the more; it
+was the first tender thing she could remember his doing to her, the
+first caress he had ever given her.
+
+"I wish I'd been good to ye, Marcella--I think often, now, of that poor
+wee broken arm, and how ye used to cower away from me! I wish I'd got a
+grip on myself sooner."
+
+"Oh, if you make me love you any more, father, I'll be torn in bits,"
+she cried, and sobbed, and could not be comforted. It was her only break
+from inarticulateness--it surprised herself and her father almost as
+though she had said something indecent.
+
+When he knew, quite definitely, that he was dying and need not conserve
+his strength, some of the old tyranny came back to Andrew Lashcairn. But
+it was a kindly, rather splendid tyranny, the sort of tyranny that
+makes religious zealots send unbelievers to the stake, killing the body
+for the soul's sake. Much of the evangelism the little white-faced cousin
+had superimposed upon his mind that night of wild passions had gone now,
+burnt up as he drew nearer to simple, beautiful, essential things.
+
+As the Feast of All Souls, the time when ghosts thronged on Lashnagar,
+drew near he brooded in silence for hours. Through one of his choking
+attacks he lay passive, scarcely fighting for breath; only once did he
+turn supplicating eyes on Aunt Janet, mutely demanding the drug that
+soothed. And when he was able to speak again, he told them what he had
+been thinking.
+
+"I want to tell people," he said, speaking very rapidly. "The mantle of
+prophecy has fallen upon me."
+
+"Ye've tauld us, Andrew--and that's enough," said Aunt Janet, who had no
+patience with his frequent swift rushes towards a climax.
+
+"I'm going to tell the others. I'm going to testify to the power of His
+might," he said just as grimly, gripping his stiff, cold hands together.
+
+"Yell be getting upset, Andrew, an' then we'll be having a time with
+ye," said Aunt Janet.
+
+"I'll not be getting upset. I'll just be dying," he said gravely, and,
+calling Marcella, sent her to the village, summoning all the people to
+come up to the farm on All Souls' Night at seven o'clock.
+
+"I must tell them, Marcella," he said passionately, pleading for her
+understanding which she could not give, for she could not understand in
+the least. "I have never done anything for anyone. I must do something."
+
+"I'm afraid you'll be worse for it, father," she said, hesitant. "And so
+is Aunt Janet--poor Aunt Janet. She's so anxious about you, and she's so
+tired, you know."
+
+He shook that thought off impatiently.
+
+"I'll be master in my own house," he cried, with some little return to
+the old Andrew. "I know it will make me worse! I know I'm dying! There,
+I ought not to frighten you, Marcella! I've frightened you enough in my
+life. But surely when I've lived for myself I can die for others."
+
+And she knew that it was no use talking to him. Indeed, she would not
+have dared to cross his will. In the night he prayed about it.
+
+"Lord, I must tell these others how I set beasts in Thy way when Thou
+wouldn't have made my life Thy path. I must tell them how I never knew
+liberty till Thou hadst made me Thy slave, how I never knew lightness
+till I carried Thy cross, how I was hungering and thirsting until I was
+fed with Thy Body and Blood--"
+
+He broke off and talked to Marcella, words that seemed eerie and
+terrible to her.
+
+"To-morrow, Marcella, is the day when the ruin came on Lashnagar.
+To-morrow I shall die--"
+
+"Oh, father!" she cried helplessly.
+
+"I was once His enemy, Marcella. I must let them see me at His feet now,
+kissing His hand--His man--the King's man--"
+
+He brooded for an hour, gasping for breath. Marcella felt worn out
+mentally and physically. Her eyes ached for want of sleep, she felt the
+oppression and burden of the atmosphere that seemed full of ghosts and
+fears, and to add to her misery she was having her first taste of pain
+in a crazing attack of neuralgia. Anniversaries, to a mind stored with
+legend and superstition, have immense signification. She felt that her
+father's prediction of his death on All Souls' Day was quite reasonable.
+But none the less fear was penetrating through her mists of weariness
+and fatalism, hand in hand with overwhelming pity.
+
+"I shall die to-morrow, Marcella. He gave His body and blood. In the end
+that is all one can do."
+
+In the afternoon she went to bed, worn out. Jean had made some sort of
+burning plaster with brown paper and something that smelt pleasantly
+aromatic. It eased the pain of her face and sent her to sleep. Her
+father had told her calmly that he was going to be dressed and meet the
+villagers downstairs. He seemed almost himself as he ordered her to take
+his old worn clothes from the press and lay them on a chair by his bed.
+She did not expostulate; no one thought of expostulating with Andrew
+Lashcairn.
+
+It was dark when she wakened and dressed hurriedly. Running down to the
+kitchen to tell Jean the pleasant effects of her plaster she found it
+was half-past six.
+
+"Andrew Lashcairn's doon," said Jean, looking scared.
+
+"Who helped him?" asked Marcella, lifting the lid of the teapot that
+stood on the hearth. She poured into it some water from the singing
+kettle, and after a minute poured a cup of weak tea, which she drank
+thirstily.
+
+"He wasna helpit--not with han's. The mistress was frettin', wonderin'
+what she'd be tellin' him aboot the furniture i' th' book-room. An' he
+juist cam' in, luikit roond, and laught. I lighted a fire i' there for
+him, for it's cauld. But he went off doon the passage, gruppin' his
+stick."
+
+"Is he lying down? Oh dear, I wish I hadn't slept so long! It would have
+been better for him if I'd been there with him."
+
+"No, he isna to his bed. He's gone through the green baize door. An'
+it's a' that dusty! I havena bin in tae clean sin' the day he tuik tae
+his bed. Always the mistress has said I maun leav' it. An' noo the
+master's gaun in."
+
+"Never mind, Jean, he won't notice," said Marcella, feeling a little
+incredulous that Jean should be caring about dust now. It seemed as much
+out of place as her worrying about the mark the plaster had made on her
+face. "I'm going to get him out. He'll be frozen in there."
+
+"He cam' in tae me and said that the folks was tae have meat and drink!
+Meat and drink! An' whaur's it tae come frae?" asked Jean in despair.
+
+Marcella flushed a little then and said quickly:
+
+"I expect he was back in the past, Jean. But perhaps he's more for the
+folks than meat and drink, really."
+
+But as she ran along the gusty passage to the green baize door all
+her pride rose savagely to think that guests should come, bidden
+autocratically to the house, and go away unfed. And that the servant,
+the one poor staunch, unpaid servant, should grieve about it. But she
+soon lost that thought as she knocked at the green baize door and could
+get no answer.
+
+"Father! Yell be cold in there. Do come out!"
+
+She waited, and at last he answered her steadily and clearly.
+
+"I'm coming at the right time, Marcella. I have my watch."
+
+"But you'll be so cold," she protested.
+
+"I'll be colder yet, soon," he said calmly, and she was forced to go
+away. She guessed that Andrew's sense of dramatic fitness made him wish
+to make his last entry on the stage alone. So she went back to her room
+and stood looking out over Lashnagar, where the autumn mists stalked and
+mowed at each other and fluttered and jostled and fought.
+
+Before seven o'clock the book-room was full of people, soaked
+through with the mist. They were the people Marcella had known all her
+life--fisher-folk, farm labourers, crofters--and she felt a momentary
+exultant pride to think that, at a word from her father, they had
+thronged to his house. There seemed something fitting in their coming on
+All Souls' Night into this bare room with the tattered pennant and the
+crackling wood fire that flickered on their weather-beaten faces. Their
+coming obediently to be talked to by her father for the good of their
+souls gave her a sense of savage exaltation for the moment. Then she saw
+Hunchback Wullie and Tammas and Jock, and went across to talk to them.
+
+"Is the Lashcairn better, then?" asked Wullie. She shook her head.
+
+"He says he's going to die to-night, Wullie--All Souls' Night," she said
+in a low voice.
+
+Wullie nodded comprehension.
+
+Aunt Janet came into the room, her thin face set and grim, her rusty
+dress of old black satin all cracking, and her great cairngorm brooch
+marking her from the rest in capes and homespun. They drew away from
+her; she had never tried to associate with them; in her detachment she
+had never been human to them as Andrew had been in his wildness and his
+weakness, and now she walked silently across the room and sat down. The
+firelight shone out fiercely as she savagely poked the logs, and with a
+motion ordered young Jock, who stood near, to throw more wood to the
+flames. It shone on gnarled hands gripping gnarled sticks, on rugged,
+ruddy faces, on white and sandy hair, on bright blue eyes, old and
+young. And then the door opened sharply and Andrew Lashcairn stood
+there, leaning on his stick.
+
+Everyone but Aunt Janet stared at him as the firelight flamed up to blue
+and purple flame, lighting his gaunt face. But Aunt Janet, like a fate,
+sat gazing up the misty side of Lashnagar through the uncovered window.
+Andrew stood still, looking from one to the other. Then he took two
+steps forward.
+
+"Jamie Mactavish and Andrew Gray are not here," he said sternly, as
+though he were a schoolmaster calling the roll. Explanations of the
+absence murmured out and he came inside, pushing the door to.
+
+Marcella, standing by Wullie, was shivering with nervous dread, and
+suddenly noting his red-rimmed eyes, blazing and wild, she clutched
+Wullie's arm.
+
+"Wullie--look at him!" she whispered.
+
+"He's been at the bar'l," muttered Wullie, and with a cry she started
+forward. But Wullie caught her back gently.
+
+"He knows what he's daein', lassie," he whispered, watching Andrew's
+face expectantly, and the girl stood petrified beside him. It came to
+her very certainly that her father had realized he had not strength to
+make what he called his allegiance to God, and that at the last he had
+sought the momentary strength of the whisky that he knew would shatter
+his glass heart.
+
+"That's why he knew he would die to-day," her voice whispered, choked in
+tears. She felt that she was in the grip of things that were bending and
+breaking her life as they liked.
+
+And then her father spoke, letting his stick clatter to the ground, and
+lifting his swollen white hands.
+
+"Friends," he said loudly, "ye have all known me in the old days. I
+asked ye here to-night to tell ye how I went along the Damascus road and
+cast my burden on the Lord.... He is not hard to deal with.... There's
+beasts in us, all of us. They lift their heads out of us and jabber and
+clamour at us; they tear at us with their claws, but if we throw
+ourselves on God's strength He crushes the life out of the beasts. We
+can do nothing till we stop fighting and lean on Him. He is kinder than
+all our hopes, kinder than all our fears--"
+
+His voice stopped with shot-like suddenness and his hands fell to his
+side as he swayed. Marcella, Wullie and several others rushed to his
+side. He fell, dragging the hunchback with him. His eyes, not blazing
+now, but dimming as quickly as though veils had been drawn across them,
+sought Marcella as he struggled for breath.
+
+"Father--dear," she said, putting her arm under his grey head as Aunt
+Janet walked across the room. "Dear--" she whispered, almost shyly, for
+it was a word that she never used except in whispers to her mother.
+
+"I knew we'd have a doing with ye, Andrew," said Aunt Janet, bending
+stiffly in her satin frock. He could not hear. He looked at her and
+turned to Marcella again.
+
+"If ye--" he began, and suddenly felt very heavy on the girl's
+supporting arm.
+
+The people crept away talking quietly then. It seemed right that Andrew
+Lashcairn had died in the midst of them all on All Souls' Night.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+After her father's death Marcella had more time to become aware of the
+really tangible shadows about the farm. In fact, she wakened to a
+general awareness about the time of her eighteenth birthday, rather
+later than most girls.
+
+She was extraordinarily young; she was inevitably romantic. Living what
+amounted to the life of a recluse, it was only to be expected that she
+should live her illusions and dreams. Her mind was a storehouse of
+folklore, romance, poetry and religion; her rationalistic readings had
+not in any way become part of her, though facts and ratiocinations, by
+mere feat of memory, were stored in her mind as irrelevances and
+unrealities that came elbowing their way through her dreams just as
+fantastic thoughts come as one falls asleep.
+
+Never, in all her life, had she known what physical pleasure was; her
+bed was hard and very thinly covered--one night her father had taken
+away and locked up a blanket because he said she must be hardened. It
+had never occurred to her that food could be a pleasure; it was just
+something that happened, a recurrence of potatoes, porridge, oatcake and
+broth. Only when she had been swimming in the fierce waves or battling
+in the winds on Ben Grief with Wullie did she realize the pleasure of
+hunger, and that was easily satisfied in the smoking hut when the
+Hunchback raked aside the ashes and brought out roast potatoes or
+toasted fish that he took down from the roof.
+
+Not knowing other girls she had no one to talk to her about clothes.
+Before Rose Lashcairn was ill she had taken great pleasure in dressing
+her little girl; soft things, woven of silk and wool, came from London
+for her, soft shoes and stockings and frocks of fine texture and
+beautiful colour that seemed strange and exotic on Lashnagar. But these
+were worn out and never replaced--except for her mother's funeral she
+never wore shoes, summer or winter. Her feet and legs were brown and
+quite invulnerable to stones or brambles. Her father did not realize
+that she needed clothes; her aunt was too much sunk in shadows to notice
+the child's appearance. And, reading her legends and romances, it was
+natural that Marcella should live them and dress them. In a press in her
+mother's room were clothes brought from the old grey house, the
+accumulation of days when fabrics were made as heirlooms. There were
+plaids and brocades and silks: there was lace from Valenciennes and
+linen from Cambrai, yellow with age. There were muslins that a Lashcairn
+had brought when he adventured to India with Clive. Rose often wept over
+them. Several times Marcella's dreams nearly cost her her life, for,
+living them so utterly, she became detached from the physical world. One
+time, when a stormy golden sun went down behind black clouds, shining on
+an ancient pile of grey stones that stood on a little spit of land near
+the bar of the river, she was reminded of Tennyson's "Morte d'Arthur."
+She heard the ripples lapping on the reeds and, with an imaginary Sir
+Bedivere at her elbow, hurried back to the farm to dress herself as a
+Scottish edition of King Arthur in kilts that had belonged to her
+grandfather. She worshipped the shine of the moon on the great jewel at
+her breast as she stepped into the little frail boat, very tired after a
+long day's wandering on Ben Grief without food. To a Kelt death is a
+thing so interpenetrating life that thought of it brought no fear;
+there was a sort of adventurous anticipation about it. She cast a
+stick--her sword Excalibur--into midstream and waited for the arm "clad
+in white samite, mystic, wonderful." That it did not appear meant very
+little to her. It certainly did not mean that it was not there. Rather
+it meant that she could not see it. So she lay in the little boat and
+quite certainly she saw the grave Queens at the head, leading her to the
+Island Valley of Avilion. Watching the moonlight glittering on her jewel
+she was hypnotized to sleep, rocked by the soft motion of the little
+boat. The current of the stream took her out to sea, the turn of the
+tide washed her back again, and she wakened at dawn famished with
+hunger, drenched with the icy water the little boat had shipped. She was
+too good a swimmer to drown and, after a valiant struggle, she came to
+land two miles from home.
+
+Her romance was never killed by misadventures. The very next day she
+climbed Ben Grief and lighted a ring of fire round his wrinkled brow by
+carrying up loads of dried heather and grass through which she fought
+her way to the rescue of a dream Brunnhilde, sleeping within the fire.
+She reached home that night with scorched clothes and hair, and
+smoke-smarting eyes. But such mishaps were only part of the adventure,
+as inevitable as storms in winter and wounds in battle. These dreams
+were in the days before her father's Rationalism kept her chained
+indoors: his evangelism sowed seeds that took root and flowered into a
+desire that she might be a wild-eyed, flame-tongued John the Baptist,
+making straight the way of the Lord. When this dream came to her it
+transmuted all the other dreams; from so deep down inside her that it
+seemed a voice of someone autocratic standing beside her came the
+conviction that to be a John the Baptist meant to be a martyr and an
+anchorite. For days after her father's death she wandered on the hills,
+preaching deliverance to the screaming gulls, who would not be quiet
+like St. Francis' birds when he preached. Many days she took food with
+her and deliberately refused to eat it, walking miles after she was worn
+out in a considered attempt at the subjection of the flesh, after the
+manner of saints of old. Sometimes she preached peace to the desolate
+ghosts on Lashnagar, but they did not seem to listen.
+
+Then, just after this, several things happened to bring her thoughts
+away from dreams to a realization of herself as a concrete,
+circumscribed being. Wullie had warned her of this.
+
+"Ye're up in the clouds, now, Marcella, like a wraith. Some day ye'll
+come down to airth. And it'll be with sic' a bang that ye'll find ye're
+very solid." She had not understood him.
+
+For six weeks after her father's funeral she had almost maddening
+neuralgia. One day, meeting Dr. Angus in the village she stopped to
+speak to him. Indeed, it was impossible to pass him, for he had bought
+Rose Lashcairn's little mare who, even after six years, remembered
+Marcella and stood with eager, soft eyes while the girl stroked her
+velvet nose and satin sides. This was the first time the doctor had seen
+Marcella since the funeral and she had been weighing on his mind: he
+guessed at more than the Lashcairns would ever have told him of their
+circumstances; he had sent in no bill for Andrew's illness and, out of
+his own pocket, had paid the Edinburgh specialist. Marcella knew nothing
+of this--if she thought of it at all, she would have thought that the
+doctor just happened, as everything else in her life, by chance.
+
+"Marcella, you're not looking the thing," he said. "Hop up beside me.
+I've not seen you for ages. Let us have a talk. I've to drive along to
+Pitleathy and I'll drop you here on my way back."
+
+She sprang in beside him and told him about the neuralgia.
+
+"I had it first when I used to sit up with father. Now I have it all the
+time--and dreadful headaches. I never knew what aches meant before. I'm
+afraid when Jean used to say she had the headache I wasn't so kind to
+her as I expect her to be to me."
+
+"We never are," said the doctor bluntly. "But have you not told Aunt
+Janet about the headaches?"
+
+"Oh no--she'd think it was silly."
+
+"Then I'd tell Jean, Marcella," said the doctor hurriedly. "If you're
+not feeling well, just tell Jean, and maybe she'll be bringing you along
+to see me." Then he added. "But to-night I'll send the lad along with
+medicine for the neuralgia."
+
+They talked about her father, then, and presently she surprised him by
+saying earnestly:
+
+"Doctor, why is it that people get ill?"
+
+He laughed and chuckled at her puzzled frown.
+
+"Well! There's a question to ask a man after his dinner. Do you know it
+took me the best part of seven years at the hospital to learn the answer?
+And even now my knowledge is not what you might call exhaustive."
+
+"It seems so queer--mother being ill, and father; then Jean's headaches
+and my neuralgia. And Wullie all twisted up."
+
+The doctor let the reins drop on the horse's neck and lighted a very old
+pipe. He had very little chance of a talk, and was glad to talk, even to
+a girl.
+
+"Just in those people you've mentioned, Marcella, you've almost every
+cause of illness." He paused, puffed at the pipe and went on,
+"Wullie--he was born like it."
+
+"Yes. I know. It seems all wrong."
+
+"It is wrong. It's a mistake," said the doctor slowly.
+
+"Whose mistake?" she asked quickly.
+
+"Ah, there you have me, Marcella. It was to answer questions like that
+that men invented the devil, I believe; they like to say he put the grit
+in the machine that turned out Wullie, and made him like that out of
+perversity."
+
+"But what do you say?" she said, looking into his face.
+
+"I don't know. I think several things. For one thing, I like to imagine
+that God, or Nature, whichever you like to call it--isn't a perfect
+machine yet, and that we human beings can step in to help a bit."
+
+"But how?"
+
+"Wullie's father, I've heard, was drowned before he was born, and his
+mother was too proud to tell when she was hungry. She used to go out
+every night and take his place with the fishing boats, rowing, sitting
+cramped, drawing the nets. We can help there by stopping that sort of
+thing."
+
+Marcella watched him, wide-eyed. She was completely mystified but so
+full of questions that she could not find which one to ask first.
+
+"That's what I'd have said when I was at the hospital, a young man. In
+those days I dealt much more with cells and bodies than--than I do now.
+Queer thing, Marcella--youngsters go for physiology mostly. When they
+get older they see that there's more in psychology. I'm old now. Maybe
+I'm more foolish, but I've a feeling, right down at my marrow, that I'm
+wiser. I like to think that Wullie's an example of the law of
+compensation and, by losing physical strength and beauty, has gained a
+beautiful soul. But for the Lord's sake don't go telling anyone I--a
+doctor--talked such arrant nonsense," he added with a laugh as he puffed
+at his pipe.
+
+"It seems wrong to me," said Marcella slowly. "I can't see why a
+beautiful mind and body shouldn't be part of each other."
+
+"You've never been introduced to your body yet, Marcella, nor shaken
+hands with it. It's never popped up and made faces at you. When it does
+you'll find folks like Wullie have a good deal to be thankful for. Your
+father, for instance--"
+
+He stopped short, coughed loudly and pulled up the horse to a sharp
+trot.
+
+"Yes. The barrel," she said gravely.
+
+"Who's been telling you that?"
+
+"Wullie. I asked him."
+
+"I wouldn't have told you, yet. But it's right you should know. You saw
+how it was with your father. Whisky ruled him. It rules all your menfolk
+like that. It wasn't till his body grew weak with sickness--and
+sickness, mind you, caused by the whisky--that he got it in hand. Then,
+you see, it was too late. He conquered a wounded foe. And, of course, he
+died. If he'd got religion earlier, perhaps--and, after all, that's only
+another obsession."
+
+"Poor father," she whispered.
+
+"If your father, without religion or anything, could have conquered,
+Marcella, he'd have been a very heroic figure. He'd have left footprints
+in the sand of time, as the poet said."
+
+Marcella nodded. This was the first time the idea of conscious heroism
+came to her. She said rather breathlessly:
+
+"But are bodies _wicked_, doctor? Lots of people seem to think so. Aunt
+Janet thinks people's bodies are _wrong_. All saints seem to think that
+too."
+
+"They're very splendid and bonny if you can keep them in hand. Christ
+taught that bodies--Humanity, that is--are the veils of God. It's only
+when bodies get out of hand that they go wrong and put a man in hell. I
+expect the idea of Trinity-worship that we get in most religions was an
+unconscious aiming at this truth, that to be a perfect human being you
+must be the Trinity--body, brain and spirit. But we're not up to that
+Trinity yet, lassie, by a long chalk."
+
+"When I used to read those scientific books, and those queer
+philosophies to father, it seemed to me that bodies were all that
+mattered. That was when I was reading biology books and lectures. It
+seemed so useless to me--just living, and handing on life, and living no
+more."
+
+"That was the idea when I was at the hospital. At a hospital, of
+course, bodies do count tremendously. But in my day more than now
+because we were in the reactionary stage from blood-letting,
+incantations and so on. I remember how Biology came to me with a
+sense of crystal precision and inevitability in those days."
+
+He paused. Marcella asked rather doubtfully:
+
+"But do you think that Biology is wrong?"
+
+"Oh, Marcella, your 'rights' and 'wrongs' are so funny, if you only knew
+it! You might as well say, 'Is fire wrong?' It's there. There's no
+getting away from it. When I was a wee laddie at home I had to write
+copy-book lessons on Saturday afternoons to keep me out of mischief. One
+I wrote so often that it keeps coming into my mind in the most foolish
+way often. 'Fire is a good servant but a bad master.' That was the
+sentence. The times I've written it, thick down strokes, thin upstrokes!
+Well, that's like any of these ologies--biology especially. It's a good
+teacher. You don't have to let it be a taskmaster."
+
+"I'd like to learn ologies, doctor. I'd like to learn to the roots of
+things. All the things I know--legends, history, poetry, haven't any
+roots at all. Professor Kraill's a biologist, isn't he?"
+
+"Well, yes--rather a heterodox one, but he's getting believed now. But
+how on earth did you know?" he said, turning on her in surprise.
+
+"There was an advertisement of a book of his lectures. It was called
+'Questing Cells' and father got it. I had to read it to him--with a
+dictionary at almost every line, because I didn't understand it. It
+showed me that, though I am muddled now, there is such a thing as
+clearness in the world. It seemed to me that if I knew all the things
+Professor Kraill knows things might be like a crystal ball--all the
+things in the world, you know, beautifully clear and rounded off. I read
+a lot of books to father after that and got muddled again. But I never
+lost the feel of Professor Kraill's book. I couldn't tell you a word of
+it now, but it's like the memory of a most beautiful music. I love him.
+I'd love to hear him--to see him. He's the wisest man in the world."
+
+"Heaven forbid!" said the doctor, laughing a little.
+
+"Why? Don't you admire him?"
+
+"Immensely, though he's heterodox. But he's just what I was saying
+to you just now--an example of a man who isn't the Trinity. Being a
+biologist, he's run all to body and brain. He's let his spirit get
+famished a bit. Queer things--one hears, too--inevitable things."
+
+"How do you mean?" she cried, quick to defend her hero, but eager with
+curiosity about him.
+
+"Oh, things you wouldn't understand. He's given up his chair at the
+University."
+
+There was a long silence. Then Marcella said definitely:
+
+"Anyway, he's splendid. I love him." The doctor laughed and told her
+it was a good thing she wasn't a student if she fell in love with
+professors from their lectures.
+
+"Well, go on with what you were saying," she said imperiously, and the
+doctor began to think that he had not quite reckoned with Marcella's
+passion for getting to the roots of things. But he expounded his theory
+to her, telling her that before many years things that were miracles in
+the time of Christ would be scientific bagatelles in the hospitals.
+
+"We've been having a materialistic time, Marcella, ever since Huxley and
+Darwin. Now we're coming to the swing of the pendulum. The body and its
+appetites have got very strong. Soon we'll have them beat by the mind."
+
+There was a long silence. Then, with a suddenness that disconcerted the
+doctor, she asked him what Wullie had meant by saying that the Lashcairn
+women took the man they needed, and went on strange roads.
+
+He filled and lit his pipe before he answered her.
+
+"If I told you you wouldn't understand. You'll come to it in time. When
+you do, remember what I said to you. If you don't keep your body in hand
+it's going to run away with you, like it ran away with your father into
+yon barrel. See?"
+
+"No," she said doubtfully. "Do you mean be like Aunt Janet?"
+
+"God forbid! No, not like Aunt Janet. You'll see when you come to it,
+Marcella. But remember that the nearest most of us ever get to the
+perfect Trinity is a thing of shreds and patches. People don't manage
+to be perfect."
+
+"Christ?" ventured Marcella.
+
+"No. He was brain and spirit without a body."
+
+"Why, doctor, how about when He fasted in the wilderness--and the pain
+on the cross?"
+
+"Bodily pain is much easier to bear than bodily desire, Marcella. Your
+poor father would have found it easier to be crucified than to bear his
+longing for whisky. And Aunt Janet--ask her."
+
+"She wouldn't tell me."
+
+"No, I suppose she wouldn't. When she was young she saw a man she
+wanted. And he was a man she couldn't have. Until she got dead as she is
+now I expect she'd have thought crucifixion a thing easier to bear. No,
+there's no one perfect. All we are, any of us, is either a soul or a
+body or a brain developed at the expense of all the rest. We get great
+holes torn in us, just as if wolves had been clawing at us. And it's the
+body that makes the most dreadful tears. Most people don't see this. You
+see, the body's hungers are the most appeasable--and being the most
+appeasable one can't see why they shouldn't be yielded to."
+
+He stopped talking as they drove into the main street of Pitleathy, and
+while he was with his patient at a little house in the middle of the
+street Marcella sat thinking. Loose ends of his talk floated about in
+her grasping mind and she collected them to make him fasten them down
+when he came back.
+
+"Do you know, doctor, you've muddled me," she said as they turned
+homewards in the teeth of the wind.
+
+"I'm sorry for that, Marcella. You'd better forget what I've said.
+Sitting alone so much I talk to myself, and I forgot I was talking
+to a bit lassie like you. Forget things you don't understand."
+
+"And then get more puzzled later on, when they crop up?" she said. "No.
+I want you to tell me, now. I want to know, now, why mother was ill--and
+why Jean and I have headaches."
+
+"Your mother was ill through an accident," he said gravely. "I don't
+wish to talk about that. And as for Jean and you--well, it's what we
+expect of women. Man has made his women-folk invalids."
+
+"Doctor!" she gasped.
+
+"Women are always getting ill more or less. Their natural place in the
+scheme of things makes them weaker. In the beginning of things they
+were in a dangerous world; as the vehicle of the new life it was not
+well that they should take their place amidst the same dangers as the
+men. Otherwise the race might have died out. So they were adapted by
+nature to a softer life. Their brains are smaller, their nerves more
+sensitive. If they'd been made as strong as men, physically, nothing
+would have kept them from fighting and exploring and getting killed."
+
+"But--but--how awful! And you mean I'll have headaches and things always
+because I'm a woman?"
+
+"Because you're a woman and, to quote your Professor, biologically
+important. Important to the race, that is--not intrinsically important.
+To keep you out of dangers and hardships--and mischief," he said,
+chuckling as he watched her indignant face.
+
+"Well, then I won't be a woman! Coddled! I never heard anything so
+disgusting! Doctor, I'm going to be a Siegfried, a John the Baptist!
+I'm going to be a man!"
+
+The doctor laughed loudly and told her to wait awhile, when she would
+laugh at this Marcella who was so eager, so impatient now.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+That conversation marked an epoch for Marcella. To use the doctor's
+phrase, it made her shake hands with her body. His medicine cured the
+neuralgia, though it would probably have cured itself now that the
+strain of her father's illness was over. But the headaches persisted
+right on until the springtime, bringing gusts of impatience and strange
+demands and urgencies that made her begin to get tired of the farm and
+Lashnagar and set her feet longing to be away on strange roads.
+
+One sunny dawn she came down to the beach and, throwing off her clothes,
+ran across the strip of shingle, and then, with rapture in the softness
+of the air after the sharp bite of winter and spring mornings, she flew
+as if on wings over the yellow sand and into the water that was sliding
+in gently, almost motionlessly. She danced in the little lazy waves.
+They seemed playmates to-day, though usually they fought and buffeted
+her; she had her usual swim out to the islet where the fishermen kept
+their nets and it seemed very splendid just to be alive. Then she swam
+back to the shore where her clothes lay in a little heap, and it
+occurred to her that she had brought no towel.
+
+"I'll have to dry like washing does--in the sun," she laughed, wringing
+her hair in her hand as she stood in a motionless little rock pool. The
+drops sparkled round her and, looking down at their little splashes, she
+caught sight of her reflection in the pool as she stooped forward to
+shake her hair. For a moment she stared, as Narcissus once stared. But
+unlike Narcissus she did not fall in love with herself. From the
+reflection she let her eyes travel over her body, and noticed that
+curves and roundnesses were taking the place of boyish slimness.
+
+"Oh--how _horrible_!" she cried and dimly realized that the change in
+her appearance had something to do with the doctor's prediction of
+physical disability. She loathed and resented it immediately. Suddenly
+conscious of her bare legs she ran home, horrified at the tightness of
+her frock that showed the roundness of her figure. As she passed the
+Mactavish cottage the mother sat in the doorway, suckling the newest
+baby. Instead of staying to talk as usual Marcella flew by, her cheeks
+crimson. As soon as she reached home she ran up to her mother's room to
+find a frock that was not so tight; tearing an old linen sheet into
+strips she wound it round her body like a mummy wrap, so tightly that
+she could scarcely breathe, and then, putting on a blouse of her
+mother's that was still too tight to please her, she surveyed herself in
+the mirror with supreme dissatisfaction.
+
+"I look _horrible_! It's beastly for people's bodies to _show_ like
+that," she cried, and, sitting down on the floor, put on the shoes and
+stockings she had had for her father's funeral, that hurt her feet. She
+ran down to the beach to discuss it with Wullie. Half-way there she
+discovered that she could not possibly mention it to anyone. This
+puzzled her. She could not understand things one could not mention.
+
+"We're very grand the day, Marcella," he said, watching her curiously.
+"Where are ye gaun?"
+
+"I've come to see you," she said, sitting down in a shadowy corner.
+
+"Have ye had breakfast? I saw ye, hours ago, swimming oot by the
+nets. There's seed cake in yon box that Jock's wife's sent doon, and
+buttermilk in the can."
+
+Even indignation with her figure could not conquer her appetite, and she
+divided the cake between them, eating her share before she spoke.
+
+"Seed cake's the nicest thing in the world," she said at last. "I love
+the wee blacks in it, don't you, Wullie? Wullie, when I'm dying I'll
+come here and Bessie shall make seed cake. Then I shall never die. I
+love the smell of it, too--it makes me think of the Queen of Sheba
+bringing spices and gold to King Solomon."
+
+"Ye seem to be having a fine queer lot of thoughts the day, Marcella,"
+said Wullie, eating slowly and looking at her.
+
+She flushed and looked away from him.
+
+"I have, Wullie, horrible thoughts. About getting old."
+
+"So old, lassie--ye're nearly a woman now," he said gently.
+
+"Wullie, I won't be a woman! I hate it! The doctor's been telling me
+disgusting things about being a woman. And so has Jean. Why should they
+be weak and get ill? Oh, I won't! I'll do as I like."
+
+"Ye're too young tae understand yet," began Wullie.
+
+"I'm not. I'm not too young to understand that I won't be weak--tied
+down. The doctor said women were all weaker than men, and I thought
+perhaps most women might be. But not me. And then--Wullie, I want to be
+like a lion or a tiger, and kill things that get in the way, and--oh,
+I'll hate being a human being with a body that gets in the way."
+
+"My poor old carcass has always been in the way," said Wullie wistfully,
+and she ran out of the hut, unable to bear the pity of that, right up on
+Ben Grief. But before she reached the top she had to take off the tight
+bandages, for she found she could scarcely breathe, much less climb in
+them, and her shoes and stockings she hid under a bush until she came
+back, for they crippled her feet.
+
+For three days she did not bathe and undressed in the dark every night.
+But after that the water called her insistently, and she went back to
+it, swimming in a deliberately unconscious way, as though she had
+promised someone she would not notice herself any more.
+
+But insensibly her dreams changed; instead of being a Deliverer now she
+dreamed, in spite of herself, of a Deliverer with whom she could go hand
+in hand; as the mild May days drew along to a hot June the dreams varied
+strangely. Up on Ben Grief all alone in the wind, hungry and blown about
+she would see herself preaching in the wilderness, eating locusts and
+wild honey, clad in the roughest sheep-skins. At home, or on Lashnagar,
+or in the water she saw herself like Britomart in armour--always in
+armour--while a knight rode at her side. When they came to dragons or
+giants she was always a few paces in front--she never troubled to
+question whether the knight objected to this arrangement or not. At
+feasts in the palace, or when homage was being done by vast assembled
+throngs of rescued people, he and she were together, and together when
+they played. She had definitely dismissed the doctor's talk of natural
+weakness. Not realizing all its implications she had nevertheless quite
+deliberately taken on the man's part.
+
+Then came a gipsy to the kitchen door one morning when Jean was in the
+byre. It was a good thing Jean was not there or she would have driven
+her away as a spaewife. She asked for water. Marcella gave her oatcake
+and milk and stood looking at her olive skin, her flashing eyes, her
+bright shawl curiously.
+
+As she drank and ate slowly she watched Marcella without a word. At last
+she said in a hoarse voice:
+
+"You will go on strange roads."
+
+"I wish I could," said Marcella, flushed with eagerness. "This place
+is--"
+
+"You will go on strange roads and take the man you need," said the gipsy
+again.
+
+Marcella glimpsed her splendid knight riding in at the gate with her,
+and the farm-yard ceased to be muddy and dirty and decayed; it became a
+palace courtyard, with glittering courtiers thronging round. It did not
+occur to her that the gipsy had heard the Lashcairn legend in the
+village--the most natural thing for a legend-loving gipsy to hear--she
+was accustomed to believing anything she was told, and that the gipsy's
+words confirmed her own longings made them seem true.
+
+"I'm afraid there's not much chance of strange roads for me," she said,
+looking out over the sea with beating heart to where a distant ribbon of
+smoke on the horizon showed a ship bound for far ports.
+
+"When were you born?"
+
+Marcella told her and, taking a little stick from under her shawl, the
+gipsy scratched strange signs in the mud.
+
+"You were born under the protection of Virgo," said the gipsy, and
+Marcella's eyes grew round and big. "You will go by strange paths and
+take the man you need. There will be many to hurt you. Fire and flood
+shall be your companions; in wounding you will heal, in losing you will
+gain; your body will be a battle-ground."
+
+"Oh, but how can you know?" cried Marcella, and suddenly all those
+stern Rationalists she had read, Huxley and Frazer, Hegel and Kraill,
+all very bearded and elderly, all very much muddled together, passed
+before her eyes. "It seems so silly to think you can see from those
+scratchy marks what I am going to do in years and years and years."
+
+But as the gipsy went away, smiling wisely, and asking none of the usual
+pieces of silver, all the Kelt in Marcella, which believed things had no
+roots, came rushing to the surface and sent her indoors to write down
+the gipsy's prophecy. Later, with a sense of mischievous amusement she
+rummaged in the book-room to find one of the Rationalist books. But they
+had been sold, most of them. Professor Kraill's "Questing Cells" was
+there and she copied the prophecy into it, on the fly-leaf.
+
+"Talk about a battle-ground!" she said, smiling reflectively. "Professor
+Kraill and a gipsy!"
+
+She turned several pages, and once more got the feel of the book, though
+still much of it was Greek to her. Then she got down from the window
+seat, for her aunt was calling her to tea, and she was hungry.
+
+There was an unusual pot of jam on the table. She looked at it in
+surprise as she sat down.
+
+"That is some of Mrs. Mactavish's bramble jelly that she sent up for the
+funeral; I thought we'd not be needing it just then. But now I see it's
+beginning to get mildewed. So it'll need to be eaten before it's
+wasted," said Aunt Janet, peeling off the top layer of furry green mould
+and handing the pot to Marcella.
+
+"Oh I do love bramble jelly," she cried, passing it to Jean, who always
+ate with them in the good old feudal fashion, right at the foot of the
+long table. Jean took a small helping and so did Aunt Janet. After a
+while Marcella peered into the pot again.
+
+"Shall we finish it up, Aunt?" she asked, and Aunt Janet shrugged her
+shoulders.
+
+"To-day or to-morrow, what's the difference? Do you really like it so
+much as that?" she added, watching the girl curiously.
+
+"I love it! Bramble jelly and seed cake! What do you think, Aunt? When
+I get very old and die, Mrs. Mactavish and Jock's wife will be in heaven
+already, brought for the purpose by the Angel Gabriel, and they'll make
+bramble jelly and seed cake for the love feast for me!" she said, eating
+a spoonful without spreading it on oatcake, encouraged by her aunt's
+unwonted extravagance. "I can't be philosophical about bramble jelly!"
+
+Aunt Janet watched the girl as though she could not believe in anything
+so sincere as this love of sweet things. Then she said a little sadly:
+
+"There's not a thing on earth that I want or love."
+
+"Because you've ruled yourself out of everything! I love to want things
+because always they may be just round the corner. And if they aren't,
+there's the fun of thinking they are. And always there's another corner
+after the last one. I'd rather _die_ of hungriness than never be
+hungry."
+
+"Oh, you'll die of hungriness, I expect. That is, if you're lucky," said
+Aunt Janet. "I shall just drop out of life some day."
+
+Suddenly time gave a sharp leap forward and Marcella saw herself sitting
+there as Aunt Janet was sitting, a dead soul in a dulled body, waiting
+to drop out of life. The words of Wullie and the gipsy slid into her
+mind--"they go on strange roads"--and she got a swift vision of herself
+in armour riding out gaily along a strange road with her knight beside
+her. Elbowing that out came something she had seen that had amazed her a
+few days ago. In the evenings she and Aunt Janet sat in the book-room,
+into which they had taken a little table of Rose's and a few chairs.
+Beside the fire-place had been one of those ancient presses in which the
+old farmer had kept his whisky, his pipes and his account books. When
+the man from Christy's came to buy the furniture he had noticed the
+beautifully carved oak doors of the press and offered such a tempting
+sum for them that Aunt Janet had let them go, nailing a piece of old
+crested tapestry across the press to hide her books and needlework
+inside. They usually sat there together, Marcella reading or dreaming,
+Aunt Janet sewing or sitting listless, not even dreaming. But into
+Marcella's dreams had come frequent movements of her aunt's hand going
+in behind the curtain. Several times when she had spoken to her, Aunt
+Janet had waited a few seconds before answering, and then had spoken in
+a queerly muffled voice. One day, looking in the cupboard for needle and
+cotton, Marcella had seen a big paper bag full of sweets--a thing she
+had not seen at the farm since her mother died. They were acid drops;
+she took one or two and meant to ask her aunt for some in the evening
+when they sat together. But she forgot until, falling into one of her
+dreams and staring in the fire, she noticed her aunt take something
+almost slyly from the cupboard and put in her mouth behind the cover of
+her book, glancing at her furtively as she did so. The amazing fact that
+she was eating the acid drops secretly came into her mind and she sat
+trying to reason it out for some minutes.
+
+"Mean thing--she doesn't want me to have any," was her first thought
+which she dismissed a moment later as she remembered certain very
+distinct occasions when her aunt had been anything but mean, times when
+she had deliberately stayed away from a scanty meal that the others
+should have more--little sacrifices that Marcella was only just
+beginning to understand.
+
+"I don't believe she's mean--anyway, I _know_ she isn't. I believe she
+doesn't have half enough to eat and these sweets make up for it! Or
+else--she likes sweets frightfully and doesn't want me to know she's
+so--so kiddish."
+
+Quick tears had sprung into Marcella's eyes, tears of pity and of
+impotence as she wondered what on earth she could do for Aunt Janet.
+After a while, when she was quite sure the acid drop was swallowed, and
+no other had taken its place, she knelt down on the hearth and, after a
+minute, shyly drew herself over to her aunt's side.
+
+"Aunt Janet," she said, taking one of the thin blue-veined hands in
+hers, "Auntie--"
+
+"What is it, Marcella?"
+
+"I--I don't know. Oh, Aunt Janet, I do wish there was something I could
+do for you."
+
+"Marcella!" cried her aunt, almost shocked.
+
+"Oh dear, you make me cry, Aunt Janet, to see you sitting here so lonely
+and so still. You seem like father--there's a wall all round you that I
+can't get inside. Oh and I do love you! I'm simply _miserable_ because I
+want to do something nice for you."
+
+She stared at her aunt with swimming eyes, and Aunt Janet, quite at a
+loss to understand the outbreak, could not get outside her wall.
+
+"You will find it's much better to rule love out, Marcella," said Aunt
+Janet gently, holding the girl's hand in hers, which was cold. "It is
+better not to pity anyone or love anyone. Oh yes, I know you pity me,
+child. But love and pity have exactly doubled the pain of the world,
+because, in addition to the tragedy of the person you love is your own
+tragic desire to do something for them. You take my advice,
+Marcella--don't love. Rule love out--"
+
+"Oh my goodness--acid drops," whispered Marcella to herself as she sat
+down to think out this astonishing heresy.
+
+From that day she had been filled with a choked pity for Aunt Janet--and
+now, suddenly, as she sat with the jam spoon full, poised over her plate
+she saw herself getting like that--slyly eating acid drops because she
+was ashamed to admit so small, so amiable a weakness, having conquered
+all the big ones.
+
+She dropped the spoon with a clatter and pushed the pot away from her.
+
+"Acid drops," she whispered to herself.
+
+"You may as well eat it up, Marcella. It only means you won't have any
+to-morrow. Neither Jean nor I want it--and the pot can be washed and put
+away then."
+
+"No--no. I don't want it," cried the girl passionately. "Aunt Janet, I
+want to go away."
+
+Her eyes were sparkling, her breath coming fast and short.
+
+"Go away?"
+
+"Yes. I can't stay here. What's to happen to me if I do? Oh what's to
+happen to me?"
+
+"You'll be happier staying here till you drop out of life," said the
+woman, looking at her intently.
+
+"Oh no--no! I'd rather be smashed up and killed--like grandfather was,"
+cried Marcella passionately.
+
+"Yes, I suppose one would--at eighteen," Aunt Janet mused reminiscently.
+"But where can you go?"
+
+"Oh anywhere--I don't care. I'll go anywhere--now--to-night. Aunt, I'm
+not cruel and unkind, am I, to want to go away? I'll come back to you.
+I'll be kinder when I come back," she cried anxiously. "I can't stop
+here and be petrified."
+
+For two days Aunt Janet thought and pondered while Marcella raged about
+Ben Grief with the wings of all the swifts and swallows on earth in her
+feet. She faced many things these two days--she planned many things. She
+was like a generalissimo arranging details of the taking of the enemy's
+entrenchments before ever the recruiting for his army had begun. She was
+full of thoughts and intentions as ungraspable and spacious as the Milky
+Way. She was not quite sure, up there with the winds lashing her face
+with her hair, whether she was going to save the world from whisky,
+materialism or dreams; she was not quite sure whether she was going to
+save women from having smaller brains and weaker bodies than men, or
+whether she was going to train herself out of being a woman. At any
+rate, she was going out on the battle-path, glittering in armour. As
+long as her eyes were on the stars and her hair streaming in the wind it
+did not seem to matter much where her feet were. They would, she felt
+sure, follow her eyes.
+
+And then Aunt Janet announced, at the end of two days, that she should
+write to Australia, to a brother of Rose Lashcairn's who lived in
+Victoria on a big sheep run. He had written at Rose's death, offering to
+have the child--one little girl more or less on his many acres would not
+count. But Andrew had refused stiffly, insolently, and there the matter
+had dropped. Now Aunt Janet sat down, and, quite characteristically
+bridging six years of silence and rather rude neglect, stated that
+Andrew was dead, the farm was not prospering, and she was sending
+Marcella out to him, as he had expressed a wish for her before. She did
+not ask if this would be convenient. It did not occur to her that Uncle
+Philip might be dead, or have left Wooratonga; with Lashcairn
+high-handedness--to quote Wullie--she expected all the world to
+do her bidding.
+
+She did not mention the letter to Marcella until it was written; she
+lived so much inside her wall that the interest the letter must
+necessarily have for the girl did not occur to her until she called
+her downstairs and put it into her hand.
+
+"You'll need to take this letter to Carlossie, Marcella. Jean is too
+busy to-day. And ask about the postage to Australia. I believe it's only
+a penny."
+
+"Who do we know in Australia?" asked Marcella.
+
+"Your mother's brother Philip. I've written to tell him you'll be coming
+to him. He wrote when your mother died saying he would have you, but
+your father refused then. I've told him you'll be coming shortly, so
+we'll need to cable when we've looked up the boats and everything."
+
+Marcella stared at her aunt in dead silence. She did not in the least
+resent this way of disposing of her. She was used to it--she would have
+disposed of herself in just the same high-handed fashion if it had
+occurred to her. But she was stricken silent with inarticulate joy at
+the prospect of going away--especially of going across the sea just as
+far as possible without getting over the edge of the world.
+
+"But do you think he'll have me?" she said tremulously when she could
+speak again.
+
+"He'll need to," said her aunt calmly.
+
+"Anyway, if he doesn't someone else will," said Marcella casually. To
+her hitherto the world had meant Lashnagar, Pitleathy and Carlossie.
+She had never been as far as Edinburgh. She had lived in a world of
+friends--a world that knew her, barefoot and hungry as she was, for the
+last of the Lashcairns, a world that had open doors for her everywhere.
+And Aunt Janet knew about as much of life outside the wall that held her
+own smouldering personality as Marcella knew.
+
+It was only years afterwards that Marcella wondered where her aunt got
+the money to buy her the clothes that came from Edinburgh--not many of
+them, but things severely plain and severely expensive. She knew that
+the man from Christy's came again--she knew that two great oak chests,
+one from the landing and one from her mother's room, went away. Later
+she missed the old weapons that used to be in the armoury at the old
+grey house and that had lain in her father's bedroom where he could see
+them ever since they came to the farm--great-swords and dirks and
+battle-axes--that had rung out a clear message of defiance on many a
+battlefield. But she did not associate their going with her own until
+she was out in mid-ocean, and then she felt sickened to think what it
+must have cost Aunt Janet to part from them.
+
+In the midst of her preparations Jean told her one day that she was
+going away soon.
+
+"Going away?" she cried. "Then what will Aunt Janet do? Why, Jean, I
+never thought you'd leave her," she added reproachfully.
+
+"Ye're leavin' her yersel'," said Jean grimly. "But I'm not gaun of ma
+ain accoont. The mistress hersel' was tellun me she'll not be needin' me
+ony mair."
+
+"Well! but what's she going to do, then?" said Marcella, arrested in her
+careful tidying of her father's old books on the shelves. "I'm going
+straight away to ask her."
+
+But her aunt simply told her that it was no concern of hers, but that
+she was going to live very quietly now.
+
+"But who'll look after you? Who'll do the work? What will you live on?"
+
+"I am not accustomed to being cross-questioned," said Aunt Janet in a
+definite way that forbade questions. But Marcella lay awake worrying
+very late during her last few nights at the farm, picturing her aunt all
+alone, without Jean, without her, without even the beasts, for a butcher
+from Carlossie had come and slaughtered the last old tottery cow,
+Hoodie.
+
+"What is she going to do?" the girl asked herself again and again as
+she tossed on her hard bed that night. She tried to imagine Aunt Janet
+bringing in wood for the fire, breaking the ice of the well in winter,
+cleaning and cooking as Jean did, and her imagination simply would not
+stretch so far. Then she saw the nights when she would sit in the big
+book-room with the ghosts walking about the draughty passages, up and
+down through the green baize door, looking for their swords and dirks,
+the beds and tables and chairs that had been sold while the rats
+scuttered about the wainscoting. And she got a terrible vision of her
+aunt looking round furtively as her hand went behind the curtain to a
+paper bag of cheap sweets.
+
+"Oh, I can't leave her!" she cried. "Poor Aunt Janet!"
+
+But even as her lips told her she could not go, her feet tingled like
+the swallows' wings in September and knew that, whoever suffered for
+it, she would have to go.
+
+Ghosts and shadows crowded round her next day when she ran down to the
+beach to say good-bye to Wullie. On the gate of the farm was fixed a
+notice saying that Miss Lashcairn desired the villagers to come to the
+house next day if they wished a free joint of beef, as she had no
+further use for her cattle. "As the beast in question is old," went on
+the firm, precise writing, "the meat will be tough. But probably it is
+quite worth consideration by those with large families."
+
+Marcella was crying as she banged open the door of Wullie's hut.
+
+"I thought ye'd be coming, Marcella," he said, looking at her with
+mournful brown eyes that recalled Hoodie's. "Jock's wife's made ye a
+seed cake to eat the day, and anither tae pack in yer grip. She says if
+ye'll pit it intill a bit tin an' fasten it doon tight it'll maybe keep
+till ye're at Australia. But I'm thenkin' she doesna rightly ken whaur
+Australia is on the map."
+
+"Oh, Wullie," cried Marcella, flinging herself down on the ground beside
+him. "I feel as if I can't bear it all. Hoodie killed, and going to be
+eaten, Jean going to Perth to live, and Aunt Janet all alone in the old
+farm, living with the rats."
+
+"Ye're awa' yersel', Marcella, mind," said Wullie gravely.
+
+"Wullie, I wish I could explain. I don't want to go, really, but if I
+don't I'm so afraid I'll get frozen up and dead. Oh, and acid drops,"
+she added frantically.
+
+"Eh?" he asked.
+
+"Oh, that's nothing. Only something I was thinking," she said quickly.
+"But I've got to go; only I hate to think of things being uprooted
+here."
+
+"Then dinna think aboot it. I knew ye'd be awa' afore long. It's in ye,
+juist as it's in the birds. But ye'll come flying back like they do."
+
+"Oh, Wullie, do you think I shall?" she pleaded, watching him as he
+stroked his beard and looked out across the sea.
+
+"Ye'll be back, Marcella. Very glad ye'll be tae come back, an' ye'll
+find me here, juist the same. Things change little. It takes millions of
+years to change everything save folk's spirits. I'll never change, till
+His hand straightens me oot some day for a buryin'. But ye'll be
+changed, Marcella, like Lashnagar--things will have cropped out in ye,
+and things will have walked over ye."
+
+Wullie's words comforted her, gave her a sense of security as she sat
+at his side toasting fish for the last time and eating the cake that
+somehow did not taste quite so good as usual. As she said good-bye to
+him before she went the round of the village bidding everyone good-bye,
+something impelled her to kiss his brown cheek. The last she saw of him
+was his bent figure silhouetted in the doorway of the hut with a fire
+glow behind it, and the setting sun shining on his eyes that were bright
+with tears.
+
+But that night she was too excited to feel really unhappy as she looked
+at the boxes ready in the book-room, her little leather case lying open
+waiting for the last-minute things next morning. When, even, she
+blundered into the dairy to find rope and caught sight of a horrible red
+pile of meat that had been Hoodie, she could not cry about it. She was
+too busy thinking that, out of her adventuring, a day would come when
+the old place would be warmed and lighted again, and she told this to
+Aunt Janet, who was sitting, sunk in thought, by the fire in the
+book-room.
+
+"I wouldn't be dreaming too much, Marcella," she said gently. "Even if
+dreams come true to some extent, they are very disappointing. A dream
+that you dreamed in a golden glow comes to pass in a sort of grey
+twilight, you know. And you'll never bring happiness here. Get the
+thought out of your head. There are too many ghosts. Could you ever kill
+the ghost of little Rose lying there with pain inside her, eating her
+life out? Or your father raging and hungering, like a pine tree in a
+window-pot?" She shook her head sadly. "No, Marcella, till you've killed
+thought you'll never be happy--till you've killed feeling--"
+
+"Look here," began Marcella quickly, kneeling beside her aunt and
+suddenly holding her stiff body in her quick young arms. "Auntie," she
+said, using the diminutive shyly, and even more shamefacedly adding,
+"dear--I'm not going to listen to you. So there! I'm going away, and I'm
+going to come back and simply _dose_ you with happiness, like we used to
+dose the old mare with medicine when she was ill. If you won't take it,
+I'll drown you in it. Or else what's the use of my going away?"
+
+"You're going away because you feel it in your feet that you've got to
+go, Marcella," said Aunt Janet calmly. The wind roared down the chimney
+and sent fitful puffs of smoke out into the room. "If I tried to stop
+you, you'd go on hungering to be away."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+It was the doctor who saw Marcella on to the _Oriana_ at Tilbury. Aunt
+Janet had not suggested coming with her: it had not occurred to her as
+the sort of thing that was necessary, nor had Marcella given it a
+thought. Left to herself, she would have taken train blithely from
+Carlossie to Edinburgh and thence to London--imagining London not very
+much more formidable than a larger Carlossie. But the doctor made them
+see that it was quite necessary for someone to see her off safely, and
+naturally the job fell to him.
+
+The booking of the passage had caused considerable discussion. Aunt
+Janet had written to the shipping company asking them to reserve a
+saloon berth by the first mail-boat after a certain date. That it took
+nearly all the money she had or was likely to have, as far as she could
+see, for the rest of her days, did not trouble her in the least. She
+could live on nothing, she told herself--and it was absolutely necessary
+that Andrew's child should go away, even though she was going to seek
+the once-refused charity of a relative, with the maximum of dignity and
+with flags flying. But the doctor had a talk with her about it. He had
+had three trips as ship's doctor to Australia on P. and O. steamers, and
+his imagination reeled at the prospect of Marcella in the average saloon
+on a long-distance liner.
+
+"You see," he said, trying hard to be tactful, "if Marcella travels
+first class she'll need many clothes. There are no laundries on most of
+these ships, and it's a six weeks' trip. In the tropics you need to be
+changing all day if you care a brass farthing for your appearance." He
+did not tell her that Marcella's frankness and her lack of conventional
+training would ostracize her among the first-class passengers, half of
+whom were Government officials and the like going out to Australia or
+India, while the rest were self-made Australians going back home after
+expensive visits to the Old Country. They moved in airtight
+compartments. The exclusive Government folks would not have accepted a
+place on a raft that held the self-made colonials even at the risk of
+losing their lives. The self-made folks, snubbed and a little hurt, were
+rather inclined to be blatantly loud and assertive in self-defence.
+Between the two Marcella would be a shuttlecock. But she clinched the
+discussion herself by remarking airily that she was going in the
+cheapest possible way.
+
+"You shall go second class," said her aunt. "I quite see Dr. Angus's
+point about the first-class passengers."
+
+"I'm going third, Aunt. I won't spend money that needn't be spent, and
+the third-class part of the ship gets there just as fast as the first!
+I'd be uncomfortable among rich folks. I only know poor people, and Dr.
+Angus--I'll get on better with third-class people."
+
+The doctor laughed at the implication, and was forced to give in. He
+told Aunt Janet that the third class was quite comfortable, though he
+really knew nothing about it. He had never been on an emigrant ship in
+his life. He arranged for a share in a two-berth cabin quite blithely.
+
+Marcella felt solemn when she finally saw the doctor's machine at the
+door waiting for her in the grey dawn light; Jean cried, and Tammas and
+Andrew, who were coming in with the tide, seeing the trap crawling
+along, ran up a little flag on the masthead to cheer her going. But Aunt
+Janet did not cry. She kissed the girl unemotionally and went into the
+house, shutting the heavy door with a hollow, echoing clang.
+
+They had some hours to spend in Edinburgh, and got lunch in Princes
+Street. It all seemed amazingly big and busy to Marcella, who could not
+imagine the use of so many hundreds of people.
+
+"I can't see what they're all here for, doctor," she said as they
+sat at a very white and sparkling table in a deep window opposite
+the Scott Monument, and the people went to and fro in the absorbed,
+uncommunicative Edinburgh way. "They don't seem to be needed."
+
+The doctor laughed.
+
+"Wait till you see London," he said. "You'll wonder more then."
+
+She got up from the table suddenly and stood in the window while the
+doctor went on eating philosophically and smiling at her as he wished
+he could go all the way to Australia with her and watch her growing
+wonderment at the world.
+
+"You know," she said doubtfully, "it seems so queer--all these people,
+and then that monument. I don't see the connection, somehow."
+
+"I see you standing there, and a lump of congealing mutton on your plate
+here," said the doctor, and she sat down and ate a mouthful hurriedly.
+
+"But what is the connection? What are they for?"
+
+The doctor watched her in his precise way with his eyes twinkling at her
+over his glasses, which he wore on the end of his nose.
+
+"I thought you were such a learned biologist, Marcella. Kraill would
+tell you they were the caskets of questing cells--seeking about for
+complementary cells that some day will themselves become the caskets of
+cells."
+
+"Ugh! That reminds me of all the clouds of flies on the dead fish in
+summer," she said, pushing her plate away. "Flies--then maggots."
+
+"Exactly!" said the doctor, chuckling.
+
+"But--" she began, and broke off, frowning.
+
+"Don't you see any connection between all yon little people and the
+monument, though? A crawling mass of folks--and one or two stand out.
+The others show they realize how these big ones stand out by making
+monuments for them. It infers, I think, that they'd all like to tower
+if they could."
+
+"Ah, that's better. But so few tower."
+
+"And that, Marcella, is just what I told you yon day we drove to
+Pitleathy. They're all patched--or I should say _we're_ all patched.
+Either bodily, mentally or spiritually there are holes torn in us, and
+we've to be so busy patching them up from collapsing that we've no time
+to grow. As time goes on and we learn better there'll be less patching.
+There'll be more growing up tall and straight--everyone--there'll be
+giants in those days, Marcella."
+
+"Yes," she said slowly, and saw herself as one of them some day as she
+drew on her gloves rather awkwardly, for they were the first pair she
+had ever possessed. "Oh, well--I'm not going to be patched at all,
+doctor. I simply won't have things tearing holes in me."
+
+London, of course, was even more amazing than Edinburgh. They had a day
+to spend there, and the doctor took her to Regent Street and Bond Street
+in the morning. He was enjoying himself in a melancholy sort of fashion.
+Marcella was _tabula rasa_. It was interesting to watch the impressions
+registered on her surface.
+
+The shops gave her none of the acquisitive pleasure he had expected. To
+her they were interesting as museums might have been. She could not, she
+did not see the use of them. The women thronging the windows and
+departments of a great store through which they walked roused her to
+excited comment.
+
+"What are they buying them all for?" she said, looking at the hats and
+frocks and the purchasers. "They have such nice ones already."
+
+The doctor asked her if she did not think they were very pretty when he
+had got over his amusement at the idea of women only buying things
+because they needed them.
+
+"Oh beautiful!" she cried rapturously. "But you couldn't do very much in
+frocks like that."
+
+"That's the idea, of course," said the doctor, watching her quizzically.
+"If you only knew it, Marcella, all these shops are built upon a
+foundation of what your professor calls 'questing cells.' You see--but
+let's get out into the air. You've started my bee buzzing now."
+
+They faced about and elbowed their way through an eager-eyed,
+aimless-footed throng by the doorway.
+
+"Now go on," said Marcella when they were in the street, walking down
+beside Liberty's. She had one eye on the windows and one ear for the
+doctor.
+
+"You see, all these women here--they're doing something quite
+unconsciously when they buy pretty clothes and spend so much time and
+money on making themselves look so bonny," said the doctor, striding
+along in his Inverness cape, quite oblivious that he was a very unique
+figure in Regent Street. "They'll worry tremendously about what colour
+suits them, what style sets off their beauty best. I don't think that
+it's really because they like to see something bonny every time they
+look in their mirror. I don't think it's even that they want admiration,
+or envy. It's simply that they're ruled by the law of reproduction, if
+they only knew it. Inside them is new life--these same questing cells.
+These cells can only find separate existence through complementary
+cells. So they urge these women on to make themselves charming,
+capturing--married or single, they are the same, deep down, for natural
+laws take no count of marriage laws, you know. The men are the same,
+too. They beg and placate--and all the time deep down, they think they
+are the choosers, the overlords. And the women tempt them and then run
+away. Last of all they yield. These cells have it ingrained in them that
+the woman-thing is only ready to yield after a chase. Very few people do
+this consciously. A few do--people who have been let into the secret of
+studying natural laws. Then they either do it for the fun of the chase,
+or else because they're too morally lazy to fight the urge of the cells.
+That's when they get holes torn in them."
+
+He walked on for a few steps, and then turned to laugh into Marcella's
+puzzled face.
+
+"All of which, I'd like to point out, I take no credit for, Marcella. I
+got it out of Kraill's Edinburgh lectures that have just been published
+in book form."
+
+"I hate that way of talking," said Marcella abruptly. "I like Wullie's
+way best. He says lives are the pathway of life, just as you do. But he
+says it's not just life, it's either God or beasts that walk along it
+and we've to help God kill the beasts so as to leave the pathway clear
+for Him. It means the same, but your way of saying it is so--so
+ungodly."
+
+"I know. But there it is. The way I talk is the way Kraill and his
+school talk. Of course, there's something in it. There would be a great
+deal in it if we were only aiming at making bodies. All this tricking
+out--refinement--it may produce the people who tower over others--like
+the Greeks with their 'pure beauty' you know--"
+
+He stopped speaking suddenly and they walked on in silence while
+Marcella looked eagerly from shop window to passers-by and back again.
+
+"It's all wrong, doctor," she said at last. "It's too one-sided."
+
+"Yes. And look at the Greeks now--"
+
+She turned to him with a quick, birdlike glance.
+
+"Do you know what I think?" she said.
+
+"Not quite all of it," said the doctor, watching her face, and thinking
+how incongruous it looked in Regent Street.
+
+"Well, I think biology's one of the beasts we've to kill before God
+walks along us. So there! Tropical forests--maggots--women," she added,
+and the doctor laughed outright.
+
+The chief impression she got of London was its aimlessness. It reminded
+her irresistibly of an ant-hill she had seen disturbed once. Myriads of
+tiny creatures had scurried passionately, exhaustingly, after each other
+to and fro, no whence and no whither; the people thronging out of shops
+and offices at dusk frightened her: there seemed so many of them, and,
+looking at their tired, strained faces and their unkingly way of
+hurrying along, uninterested and uninteresting save in getting to their
+destination, it seemed to her that they were not thinking of ever
+"towering": when Dr. Angus reminded her that they were so busy keeping
+alive that they had no time to think how and why they were alive at all,
+she was plunged into black depression; at home she had only had less
+than a hundred people and a few beasts about the farm to pity. Now it
+came to her with sudden force that all these people, so driven by
+different forces, were to be pitied. But as soon as she saw the crowd of
+people at Fenchurch Street station and a chalked notice, "Boat train for
+the R.M.S. _Oriana_," she forgot abstract worries.
+
+There seemed to be a good many children, small groups of five or six
+with father and mother, and piles of inexpensive-looking luggage; there
+were several young men who looked very much like the lads who worked
+about the farm at home; there were groups of girls and a more or less
+heterogeneous collection of people who might be passengers, and might be
+friends seeing passengers off. But what impressed her immensely was a
+pile of brightly striped deck-chairs with sun-awnings. They looked
+exotic, tropical on the grey, gloomy platform; they seemed so pleasantly
+lazy and luxurious among the piles of utilitarian-looking luggage. The
+doctor bought one for her and put it among her baggage.
+
+The train was crowded; the doctor stood up to give his seat to a woman
+and Marcella sprang to her feet, talking incessantly about her
+impressions and her expectations. She thought London, seen from a
+railway carriage window, which gave only a view of back gardens,
+factories, little streets and greyish washing drying, was an appalling
+place. Three times she said to the doctor, "But what's the use of living
+at all in such miserable places?" and the second and third time he only
+smiled at her. The first time he had said:
+
+"Why, either because they don't know there's anything better, or else
+because they're sure there's something better. Either is a good reason
+for going on with awful things."
+
+At last they were in the tender, in a drizzling, greyish rain, ploughing
+through the coffee-coloured water of the Thames towards the _Oriana_,
+which seemed surprisingly small. She had several surprises during the
+journey from Fenchurch Street. To begin with, someone trod on her foot
+and did not apologize; several people elbowed her out of their way in
+their rush to get to their luggage; no one smiled at her or spoke to
+her; no one seemed to realize that she was Marcella Lashcairn, or, if
+they realized it, it made no impression on them.
+
+"Don't people here seem bad tempered?" said she to the doctor. "They
+don't seem to care about each other in the least."
+
+"There are so many of them, Marcella--at home, you see, there are so few
+that they are frightfully interesting and friendly and critical of each
+other. Among all these people nobody matters very much--"
+
+"They matter to me. I want to be friends with them, take them under my
+wing," she said, looking round at them, most of them people who would
+not be very likely to be put under anyone's wing at all. "Don't you feel
+like that?"
+
+"I don't. They come under my wing fast enough without being asked and
+lots of them come in the night just when I've got in bed," he said. "I'm
+a bit tired of people, Marcella. I've seen too much of them. I always
+get two views of 'em, you know--inside and out. And the inside view is
+very depressing."
+
+He laughed at her grave face, but once again he had a sharp misgiving
+about letting her go away alone. It seemed dangerous to turn her,
+practically an anchorite, loose among so many people. He wished, now,
+that he had let her brave the freezings of the saloon rather than the
+thawings of the steerage. But she seemed so confident, so eager, that he
+could say nothing to damp her spirits, only he was very glad, on going
+with her to look at her cabin, to find that she was to have it to
+herself. That, at any rate, prevented a too close intimacy that he
+suddenly felt might be dangerous.
+
+They found very little to say during the twenty minutes he had to spend
+with her before the tender took him back to the shore. He was feeling
+very saddened, and at the same time anxious to give her excellent,
+fatherly advice, for he suddenly realized her abysmal ignorance when he
+saw her standing smiling with an air of pleased expectancy among all
+these strangers, waiting, as she had said, to love them all and take
+them all under her wing. Twice he started nervously to warn her--and
+each time she interrupted him joyously.
+
+"Doctor, just come and peep into this door! Look, millions and millions
+of shiny rods and wheels and things. Oh aren't engines the most
+beautiful things on earth? Look at them--not an inch to waste in them!
+I wish I could be an engineer."
+
+The next minute the first bell rang to warn visitors to be getting their
+farewells over, and he started again, shyly and hesitatingly:
+
+"Marcella--I'd be careful."
+
+He was frightened of women-folk unless they were ill. He could talk to
+Marcella about impersonal things very interestedly, but suddenly to
+become fatherly was difficult. His mouth went dry, his face flushed and
+he wished he had asked Aunt Janet to come with them.
+
+She seized his arm eagerly.
+
+"Oh look at the nice, kind little lifeboats! They're not much bigger
+than Tammas's boat. Doctor, if we're wrecked isn't it a good thing I can
+row and swim? Do you think we might get wrecked? I'd have that nice
+little neat boat the third along and rescue the women and children! If
+the boat gets full I'll hop out and swim--and if sharks come along I'll
+tell them what Aunt Janet said about Hoodie. I think I'd be tough, don't
+you?"
+
+Her face clouded at mention of her aunt and Hoodie and the second bell
+rang out.
+
+"Only three more minutes," called a steward close to Marcella's side.
+"All for the shore ready, please!"
+
+"You'll be looking after Aunt Janet, doctor?" she said gravely. "And
+Wullie? He'll miss me--if you'd make it possible to call and have a few
+words with him at the hut when you're passing."
+
+"Yes, Marcella," said the doctor, and found his voice strangely husky.
+"And look here, Marcella--you'll be careful?"
+
+Her eyes were looking into his, very bright with tears as she took his
+hand in hers and walked towards the gangway with him.
+
+"I couldn't be careful if I tried," she said, laughing, though her eyes
+got even more damp than ever. "Why should I be careful?"
+
+"You--you might get sea-sick," stammered the doctor despairingly.
+
+"Oh don't be silly! I'm as much at home on the sea as Tammas. Sea-sick
+indeed! Whatever next?"
+
+The third bell clanged deafeningly and the siren of the little tender
+hooted at the doctor's efforts to be fatherly.
+
+"Any more for the shore, please?" called one of the ship's officers who
+stood ready to cast off, and Marcella thought he looked accusingly at
+the doctor.
+
+"They'll be taking you along, doctor," she said. "Oh I do wish you were
+coming! Good-bye! Good-bye. Oh dear, I do believe I'm going to cry."
+
+"Good-bye, lassie," said the doctor, taking off his glasses as he
+stepped on to the gangway and blinked at her. Suddenly she thought he
+looked so grey and so lonely that it seemed necessary to comfort him
+and, before the man at the gangway could stop her, she had dashed after
+him, flung her arms round his neck, kissed him loudly on his ruddy cheek
+and ran back on deck again, all in a moment. She was looking at the
+doctor as he stared at her blindly, but she was suddenly conscious of a
+loud and passionate "Damn!" very close to her. She guessed, rather than
+realized, that she was standing on someone's foot.
+
+"Oh, I am so sorry," she said, flushing hotly; she gave the owner of the
+foot, which was in a neat brown shoe, a swift upward glance that stopped
+at rather bright, downcast brown eyes. The next minute she was waving
+to the doctor, for the tender had already started and the gap of dirty
+water was widening.
+
+"You'll take care, Marcella," he called. "And, Marcella, if you're
+getting unhappy, you'll be coming back home?"
+
+"Of course I'll come back. This is only a crusade," she said, waving her
+hand to him, feeling that she would begin to dance with excitement in
+another moment, and at the same time wishing that he could come with
+her, for, as she saw him through mists slowly getting further and
+further away while the gap of water widened, she realized how absolutely
+alone she was.
+
+Next moment she became aware of a tall, grey-haired lady in black
+clinging to the rail beside the doctor, and crying unrestrainedly as she
+seemed to be gazing directly at Marcella.
+
+"Louis, you'll remember, won't you?" she cried in a faint, choked
+voice. "You'll try, won't you?" and Marcella, turning slightly,
+realized that it was the young man with brown eyes at whom she was
+looking.
+
+"Yes, Mater, you know I will," said he hoarsely. A crowd of half a dozen
+men standing on the other side of Dr. Angus began to yell greetings and
+farewells to the man called Louis while the grey lady's eyes and his
+held each other for a moment in a passionate glance of appeal and
+ratification.
+
+"Cheerio, Farne," called someone.
+
+"Farne, don't get wet!" yelled someone else. There was a chorus of
+cheers and catcalls.
+
+"Buck up, Mater," he called with another long glance. Then, waving his
+hat to the others he called cheerfully, "Give my respects to Leicester
+Square, you chaps."
+
+A group of stewards in white jackets began to whistle the song and
+someone on the boat deck sang it in a high falsetto. Someone behind
+Marcella was holding a piece of white ribbon that went right across the
+water to the tender; as the boat's speed accelerated the frail thread
+snapped and the girl in whose hand it was clasped, a very thin, anaemic
+looking girl, gave a choking sob.
+
+"My only sister," she said to no one in particular. "There she is, and
+here am I. They wouldn't pass her for Australia, because they say she's
+got consumption."
+
+"What a shame!" murmured Marcella, waving frantically to the doctor
+while from the tender came the deep, gay voices of the students who had
+cheered Louis singing "We want more Beer" to the tune of "Lead Kindly
+Light."
+
+The wake of the tender widened out, lapped against the side of the
+_Oriana_ and rippled away; it was no longer possible to distinguish
+anything but a blurred mass of pinkish faces and dark clothes, splashed
+by a crest of white handkerchiefs. Good-byes rang out to the undersong
+of "We want more Beer." Marcella turned away and looked right into the
+face of Louis Farne. It was a very red face, unnaturally red and
+distorted; the brown eyes were bright with tears.
+
+She stared at him in amazement; he really was a phenomenon to her--the
+first young man she had ever seen, with the exception of the peasant
+lads. She blinked her own dry eyes and frowned at him reflectively.
+
+"Did it hurt you as much as that? Anyway, I'm very sorry," she said.
+
+"D'you think I'm blubbing for that, idiot?" said the boy in a jerky
+voice, and, bending almost double, darted down the companion-way.
+
+She stared at him, and turned to the ship's rail again, drowning in
+surprise. She was surprised at Tilbury now that she had time to look
+about her. It was so utterly unromantic ashore--docks, wharves,
+miserable buildings and brown fields, very distant. She remembered that
+Queen Elizabeth had reviewed her troops at Tilbury when she was getting
+ready for the Armada to land; she had expected that the glamour of that
+ancient pageant would hang about Tilbury. And there was no glamour at
+all--except, perhaps, in the ships that lay at anchor and the barges
+that glided by; they were glamorous enough with their aura of far lands
+and strange merchandise.
+
+She became aware that the girl with the consumptive sister was looking
+at her, and must have heard the boy's remark.
+
+"People here seem very rude," she remarked.
+
+"That they are! Saying she had consumption--I know it was consumption
+though they wrote it down in funny words. Other folks said she had
+consumption too--sauce! And now she's all alone there, and I'm here."
+
+"What made you come," asked Marcella, "if you didn't want to leave her?"
+
+"_I_ do' know. Fed up, that's about it," said the girl resignedly. "I
+wisht I hadn't come an' left her now, though. Her not being strong--mind
+you, it's all my eye to talk about consumption, but her best friend
+couldn't say as she was strong. Oh, dear, I do wisht I hadn't left her."
+
+For half an hour the thin girl argued with Marcella--a very one-sided
+argument--explaining in detail that her sister could not possibly have
+consumption, but that the doctor who had refused to pass her as an
+emigrant must have had a spite against her--simply must have had.
+Otherwise why didn't he pass her? What was it to him? Marcella was very
+sympathetic but quite unhelpful, and after a while got away and went
+below to arrange her things in her cabin.
+
+It fascinated her; it was quite the smallest thing she had ever seen,
+much smaller than Wullie's hut, and the shining whiteness of the new
+enamel particularly appealed to her, though the smell of it was not very
+pleasing. The clamps that held the water-bottle and glass gave an
+exhilarating hint of rough weather; the top bunk, about on the level of
+her eyes, promised thrilling acrobatic feats at bedtime, and she decided
+to sleep in that one, leaving the other as a receptacle for her baggage.
+
+In her preparations she lost sight of the lunch hour, and the bell and
+the sound of feet scurrying down the companion way meant nothing to her.
+But at three o'clock something extraordinarily exciting happened; she
+heard the sharp "ting-ting" of a bell, and the ship began to palpitate
+as if a great heart were beating within it. She hurried on deck as the
+siren began to cry. As soon as her head appeared above the top of the
+companion-way she saw the wharves and houses on shore running away in a
+peculiarly stealthy fashion; a ship much bigger than the _Oriana_, whose
+decks were thronged with stewards and deck-hands cheering and calling
+out greetings, went by; she dipped her flag to the outgoing _Oriana_,
+and Marcella thought how nice and chivalrous ships were to each other.
+Then it dawned on her that they were under weigh--that the heart she
+felt beating was the ship's engines, and that the extraordinary
+behaviour of the shore was because the _Oriana_ was going out with the
+tide.
+
+She wondered then why she had come, and felt very frightened and lonely.
+In all this big ship was no one who would care if she fell overboard
+into the muddy water; in all the world except at Lashnagar, which was
+sliding away from her with every beat of the ship's heart, there was no
+one who knew her except an unknown, almost legendary, uncle. She sat
+down on a covered hatchway, suddenly a little weak at the knees.
+
+People passed and repassed, worrying the stewards with foolish and
+unnecessary questions, which they answered vaguely as they hurried by.
+The thin girl stood leaning over the rail watching the brown shores that
+imprisoned her sister: four men who had apparently already made friends
+came along and sat down by Marcella, exchanging plans. One of them was
+horribly pock-marked; a younger man with red hair, queer shifty eyes and
+a habit of gesticulating a great deal when he talked was apparently
+going out with him. As the mudflats of the Thames glided by dreamily
+Marcella found their conversation slipping into her consciousness. The
+man with the red hair was talking: as he waved his right hand she saw
+that it had the three middle fingers missing. Her eyes followed it as if
+it hypnotized her.
+
+"Going out to Sydney?" asked the pock-marked man of the two young farm
+hands who were staring about them open-mouthed. They nodded stupidly.
+
+"Got 'ny tin?" asked the red-haired man. The younger farm hand, a ruddy,
+clean, foolish boy of twenty, jerked his thumb towards his friend.
+
+"Dick's got it."
+
+"Going to a job?"
+
+"Maybe," said the elder of the two, a little on his guard.
+
+"Well, what I was finkin' was vat vis is a six-weeks' trip, an' if we
+was to pal in we could have a good time. I've done vis jaunt before, and
+know ve ropes. I know how to square ve stewards to get drinks out of
+hours, and little extrys."
+
+The farm lads nodded comprehension, and the younger one began to talk
+rather loudly of his prospects. The pock-marked man drew a little
+closer.
+
+"We're going out to start a little business," he began.
+
+"Ole Fred," the red-haired man took up the tale, jerking his head
+towards his friend, "he's bin runnin' a business down Poplar way--not a
+business, in a manner o' speaking. It was a kip for sailors. On'y he got
+acrorst the cops abaht a sailor as disappeared. So him an' me--we've
+alwiz palled in wiv each ovver--fought we'd make a move over ve water.
+If we was to pall in togevver vis trip maybe we might do somefing
+togevver when we hit up in Sydney."
+
+"Put it there, mate," said the pock-marked man, holding out his hand to
+the farm lads, "and we'll wet it."
+
+They all got up. Ole Fred, noticing Marcella looking at him with frank
+curiosity as she tried to translate his queer, clipped English, gave her
+what he imagined to be a friendly smile.
+
+"Coming?" he asked, holding back, while the red-haired man gave a loud
+guffaw and dug him in the ribs.
+
+"Now, now, Freddy--vat's his great weakness--a little bit o' skirt," he
+explained to the others, who laughed loudly.
+
+"Coming where?" asked Marcella with pleased interest, though she wished
+his face was not so appalling. "Is it tea-time?"
+
+"No. Come an' 'ave a drink," he said.
+
+"Oh, can we get one? I am glad. I missed lunch. You were luckier, I
+suppose, as you have been here before and understand the rules. It's
+very kind of you."
+
+"I never mind being kind to young ladies," he said, leering at her.
+"Look here, you sit down here an' I'll bring you a drink. Then we c'n
+have a little talk and get to know each other better."
+
+She sat down, feeling horrible at hating his face when he was so kind.
+She heard laughter from the men who had gone a little way up the deck to
+a doorway, and then Ole Fred came back with a small tumbler in one hand
+and a large one in the other. The small one he put into Marcella's hand.
+
+"Oh--" she began, looking at it doubtfully.
+
+"What's up?" he asked, sitting down very close to her.
+
+"I'm sorry. I wish I'd asked you to bring tea."
+
+"Oh, you can't get tea. Anyway, ship's tea is rotten. Drink that up,
+dear. It'll put a bit of go into you. I like young ladies with a bit of
+go."
+
+She frowned at him. Then the smell of the stuff in the tumbler was
+wafted to her. The green baize door came before her, almost tangible,
+and the book-room as it was the night her father died, when last she had
+smelt whisky as she and Wullie knelt on the floor beside him.
+
+"Here, take it," she cried, starting up wildly. "Take it away! I'd die
+if I drank it."
+
+"What in hell--" began the man, staring after her.
+
+But she was already down the companion-way and rushing towards her
+cabin. All the misery of her father's death and illness had swept back
+upon her. It was quite true, as Aunt Janet had said, that nothing would
+kill that pain until she had schooled herself not to feel. She felt the
+literal, physical weight of all that misery as she ran along the
+alley-way, her eyes swimming, her face flushed.
+
+Her cabin--Number 9--being the one with the porthole, was at the end of
+the alley-way. The door of Number 8 was open into the passage, but she
+was too blinded by her emotion to notice it, and blundered into it. It
+was badly swung, and slammed inwards. She heard a smash inside the
+cabin, and someone said "Damn!" It was exactly the same "Damn" that had
+resulted from her headlong flight after Dr. Angus.
+
+She was standing a little breathless by her own door when Number 8
+opened and Louis Farne looked out. His hair was rumpled, his expression
+one of speechless annoyance.
+
+"W--what the d--devil are you up to?" he said, stammering a little.
+"Th-that's the s-second time."
+
+"Oh, it's you!" she said, speaking breathlessly. "A horrible man gave me
+whisky, and I was frightened."
+
+"Good Lord!" He gazed at her, and she noticed that he gazed in a queer
+way, afraid to meet her eyes: it was her chin he saw when he looked at
+her; she rubbed it with her handkerchief, wondering if a smut had got on
+it. And he transferred his gaze to her ear.
+
+"And I made you spill your tea! I am sorry! I seem made to do violent
+things to you. But can't I get you some more?"
+
+"I s-suppose I c-can make some," he said, turning into the cabin.
+
+"Don't they give us tea? Do we have to make our own?"
+
+"Oh no--but I've done this trip before, and know how one w-wants a
+d-drink in the tropics."
+
+He took the door in his hand and fumbled with the faulty catch as though
+he would shut it. Then he seemed to shake himself together inside his
+coat, which was very crumpled, as though he had been lying down inside
+it. "Look here," he said breathlessly and with an effort, "w-would you
+like some tea? I can get another c-cup from the steward."
+
+"I would," she said frankly. "Do make some more. I've a cake in my box
+that's supposed to last me till I get to Australia. But I'll find it,
+and we'll have it now. I'm horribly hungry."
+
+She went inside her cabin and drew out her trunk, which she had not yet
+unlocked. She heard him clearing up the broken cup, and then he tapped
+on her door.
+
+"I can't open it--mine opens inwards, you see," she called. "And my
+trunk's in the way. What is it?"
+
+"I--I--c-called you an idiot," came his voice, rather low and
+hesitating.
+
+"So I was," she said bluntly, and heard him laugh.
+
+"St-still--I needn't have mentioned it."
+
+Then his steps grew faint along the alley-way. She sat back on her
+heels, frowning. She was wondering why he would not look at her, why he
+flushed and stammered when he spoke to her.
+
+He was back in a few minutes, explaining that he had been to the cook's
+galley for boiling water to make tea. She had dragged her cabin trunk
+into the doorway, and laid upon it the tin in which her cake was packed,
+the two cups he brought with him and the teapot.
+
+"A beneficent shipping company provides one camp stool to each cabin,
+you'll find--if you're lucky," he said; but there was not one in
+Marcella's cabin. He sat down on his own, and then, standing up
+awkwardly as she sat quite casually and comfortably on the floor,
+offered it to her.
+
+"Oh no--keep it. I always sit on the floor," she explained, and this
+time he stared at the end of her nose.
+
+He explained the mystery of powdered milk to her; reaching over for the
+tin to examine it more closely, she tipped it over.
+
+"I keep doing this sort of thing," she explained, "ever since I left
+Lashnagar. Most things I touch I knock over."
+
+"Weak co-ordination," he said.
+
+"Whatever's that?" She paused in cutting a slice of cake with an
+enormous clasp-knife Wullie had given her years ago.
+
+He immediately looked consciously learned.
+
+"Like a baby, you know--it grabs for a thing and can't aim at it. It
+reaches a few inches the other side of it. It means your brain and body
+are not on speaking terms."
+
+"Oh, my goodness! Am I like that? Does it matter? How do you know all
+about it?"
+
+"I learnt it at the hospital."
+
+"Oh, are you a doctor then?"
+
+"No. N-not n-now," he stammered, and began to untie and retie his shoe
+lace very carefully. "I--I was going to be."
+
+"You must be clever," she said admiringly. "What a lot of things we can
+talk about!"
+
+"Rather! I'm w-wondering what m-makes you like that!--you know what I
+mean, without co-ordination. Babies and drunkards and that sort of thing
+usually are."
+
+"Well, I'm neither of those. But I'll tell you why I think it is. It's
+because I've lived in the open air, where there was nothing to knock
+over except trees and stones; or else I've lived in an enormous house
+where everything was so big you couldn't knock it over if you tried. I'm
+not used to being among things and people."
+
+"Been in prison?" he said, smiling for the first time.
+
+She entered on a vivid description of Lashnagar. He seemed to think it
+was a fairy tale, though he listened eagerly enough, and once she saw
+him actually look directly at her face for an instant.
+
+"Are you going to Sydney?" he asked at length.
+
+"I'm booked through to Sydney, but I'm going to live with an uncle right
+in the backblocks somewhere, and he may meet me at Melbourne. I've never
+seen him yet. Where are you going?"
+
+"Sydney."
+
+"To live there?"
+
+"No, die probably," he said, and his face that had been animated
+suddenly became morose and gloomy, and his hand shook as he lighted
+a cigarette. Her eyes opened wider.
+
+"Are you ill, then?" she asked gently. "You don't look ill."
+
+"No, I'm not ill. By the way, do you smoke? It didn't occur to me to
+offer you a cigarette."
+
+She shook her head, watching him with a puzzled frown. She wondered why
+his hands gave her such a vague sense of discomfort as she watched him
+light another cigarette. It was not until she was in her bunk that night
+that she remembered that his nails were bitten and ragged--one finger
+was bleeding and inflamed.
+
+"No, I'm not ill. I'm sick, though. The Pater says I want stiffening.
+This is my third trip in the stiffening process. Like a bally collar in
+a laundry! Oh, damn life! What's he know about it, anyway? Have you got
+a deck-chair?"
+
+"Yes, but--"
+
+"I'm going to put mine on the fo'c'sle presently. If we don't peg out
+claims they'll all go, and the fo'c'sle is the best place in the
+steerage. Where's yours? I'll t-take it there, if you like."
+
+He had begun to stammer in the last sentence, suddenly self-conscious
+again. She told him where her chair was on deck, and next minute,
+without another word, he was half-way along the alley-way, leaving the
+tea-things where they were. Then he turned back and spoke from several
+yards away.
+
+"I suppose you're wondering what the devil I'm doing in the steerage,
+aren't you? A chap like me--a medical student! And I'll t-tell you w-why
+it is! The p-pater's too mean to pay for me to go decently."
+
+He was looking down at his shoes as he spoke. She noticed that the nice
+brown eyes were quite far apart; the forces that set them so had not
+meant them to be shifty. His chin was strong, too, but his mouth was
+loose and much too mobile. It quivered when he had finished speaking.
+She reflected that if she had seen him in a train reading, and not
+speaking to anyone, she would have thought him very nice to look at.
+Only his nervousness and his mannerisms made him unpleasant.
+
+"He'd go first class himself if he was going to Hades! Steerage is good
+enough for Louis--as there's no way of letting him run behind like a
+little dog!" He began to bite his lower lip, and his fingers twisted
+aimlessly.
+
+"I hadn't thought of the lack of dignity in it," said Marcella calmly.
+"I said I'd come steerage, and here I am. I'm sure it's going to be
+jolly."
+
+"I don't suppose you'd notice, being a farmer's daughter," he said.
+
+"I never notice anything, and I never worry about things. I knew
+perfectly well aunt couldn't afford to pay more for me, and I'm not
+such a fool as to pretend she could."
+
+"And I'm to consider myself squashed--abso-bally-lutely pestle and
+mortared?" he said, turning away flushing and biting his lip.
+
+"Quite. I hate pretenders," she said. The next moment he heard her cabin
+trunk being pushed noisily inside and the door was banged to.
+
+At five o'clock a steward came along to explain that he had looked for
+her at lunch-time, but could not find her.
+
+"I've reserved you a place at my table, miss," he said. "You'd better
+get in early and take it. These emigrants, they push and shove so--and
+expect the best of everything. And mind you, not a penny to be had out
+of them--not one penny! It's 'Knollys this' and 'Knollys that' all
+day--my name being Knollys, miss--you'd think I was a dog."
+
+She went along the alley-way with him. He went on, aggrievedly:
+
+"Simply because they've never had anyone to order about before, and they
+aren't used to it. But anything you want, let me know, miss, and I'll
+see you all right."
+
+When she got into the dining saloon she found small wars in progress.
+About a hundred and fifty people were trying to sit down in a hundred
+seats. The stewards looked harassed as they explained that there was
+another meal-time half an hour after the first. Knollys was trying, with
+impassive dignity, to prove mathematically to an old lady that by
+waiting until six o'clock for her tea to-day and automatically shifting
+all her meal-times on half an hour she was losing nothing; and, after
+all, it would all be the same whether she had her tea at five or six or
+seven a hundred years hence. But she thought there was some catch in it,
+for she expressed an intention of seeing the captain, and then, thinking
+better of it, stood behind an already occupied chair with the air of
+Horatius holding the bridge.
+
+When at last order was restored and Marcella sat down, she found that
+she was at a long table, one of three that ran from end to end of the
+saloon. Ole Fred and his three friends were at the same table, a little
+higher up. He scowled at her, and the three others made some grinning
+remarks to him which he seemed to resent. Next to her was a little boy
+of six or seven, who looked at her gravely. Beside him was a man with
+greying hair and a very red face, who was talking to a small lady of
+deceptive age--a very pretty, dark, bright-eyed little lady, charmingly
+dressed, with hair of shining blackness arranged about her head in
+dozens of little tight curls. She and the elderly man were talking
+animatedly. The little boy pulled the man's arm several times gently,
+and said "Father," but he did not notice.
+
+There were piles of sliced bread at intervals up the table, and saucers
+containing butter and jam. The stewards came to each person with an
+enormous pair of pots and, murmuring "tea or coffee?" poured something
+by sleight-of-hand into the thick, unbreakable cups.
+
+"Father!" murmured the little boy again, pulling his father's sleeve.
+The father shook his arm impatiently, as one jerks away an annoying fly.
+He went on talking absorbedly. A steward asked if Marcella would have
+ham or fish.
+
+"Father," said the little boy, with quivering lips.
+
+"What's to do, laddie?" said Marcella.
+
+He stared at her, summed her up and decided.
+
+"I'm thinking, shall I have ham or fish?" he said seriously.
+
+"Which do you like?"
+
+"Fish--only the bones are so worrying."
+
+"I'll see to the bones for you. Have fish because I'm having it, and we
+can keep each other company," she said. Knollys darted away.
+
+"I'd advise you to make a good tea, miss," said Knollys with a firmly
+respectful air. "There's nothing until breakfast at eight to-morrow."
+
+Marcella nodded at him. Next minute she heard Ole Fred swearing at him
+for not being quicker, but Knollys took it all with an impersonally
+sarcastic air. She cut up the little boy's bread and butter into strips,
+arranged his fish, and watched, with amusement, his father turn to him
+with a jerk of remembrance.
+
+"It's good of you to look after young Jimmy," he said, smiling at
+Marcella. "He misses his mother."
+
+"Is she dead?"
+
+"Yes. He's only me. There are a surprising lot of lonely people in the
+world, aren't there? The little lady next to me--she's a widow, I find.
+It's hard when a woman has had a man to depend on and suddenly finds
+herself left to battle with the world, isn't it? Women are such fragile
+little flowers to me--they want protecting from the winds."
+
+Marcella looked at him; he was rather fat: the excitement of his talk
+with the little lady had made his forehead shine; when he smiled his
+drooping moustache could not hide a row of blackened, broken teeth. He
+smelt of stale tobacco, as though he carried old pipes in every pocket.
+He ate quickly and noisily, his eyes on his plate, his shoulders moving.
+
+Jimmy asked timidly if he might have a piece of bread and jam. His
+father said "Yes, of course," and went on eating. Marcella spread the
+jam for him, and then turned to his father.
+
+"I don't know many women," she said. "But I'd just like to see a man
+treat me as a fragile flower."
+
+"Ah, wasteful woman!" said Mr. Peters, smiling fatuously as he wrestled
+with a hard piece of ham rather too big for his mouth. As soon as he had
+swallowed it, he went on, "That's the thing a man loves in a woman--a
+_real_ man, that is! 'Just like the ivy, I cling to thee' should be a
+woman's motto, a true woman's motto. A woman's weakness, her trust in
+man is her most womanly characteristic. It appeals to all that is best
+and chivalrous in a man."
+
+A fragile voice at his elbow said, "Mistah Petahs," and he turned
+hurriedly towards it. Marcella said, "Pooh!" loudly and very rudely and
+turned to Jimmy.
+
+"Do you like cake?" she asked.
+
+"Rather! Gran gives me cake."
+
+"Well, you come with me into my little house after tea and we'll have
+some. What number is your little house?"
+
+"Fifteen."
+
+"Mine is Number 9 so we are not very far away."
+
+She looked round several times for Louis Farne, wondering if he would
+consider it beneath his dignity to have his meals with the steerage
+people, but could not see him. Even after she and Jimmy had explored her
+cabin, eaten some cake and walked several times up and down the deck
+talking, while the wind blew keenly in their faces, she saw nothing of
+him and there was dead silence in his cabin. Her deck-chair, she
+noticed, was where she had seen it put among a pile of others; later in
+the day Knollys came along and stencilled her initials.
+
+"If you don't have your name on, some of these blooming emigrants will
+pinch it, or the deck-hands will hide it till we're a few days out and
+sell it to someone else."
+
+She began to think Knollys was a very useful person to know, for all his
+superiority and pessimism.
+
+As it grew dark, lights twinkled out ashore--lights rocked here and
+there on passing ships and barges: tubes of light projected themselves
+out from the portholes on to the blackening water, that swished and
+washed past the sides with a sound of desolation; to the landward an
+uncoiled serpent glittered out into the water and then seemed to cover
+itself in a grey veil of darkness as the _Oriana_ passed the pier of
+some little watering-place. Marcella went slowly along the deck, climbed
+the fo'c'sle steps and sat down on the anchor. At Lashnagar she had
+always seen ghosts walking on the sea at nightfall. Now they rose out of
+the swirling water, passed in and out swaying among the lights of the
+ship. From under her feet in the crew's quarters came the tinkle of a
+mandoline playing "La Donna e Mobile."
+
+She had seen ships pass in the darkness at home, out on the horizon, a
+glimmering blur of light. She had pictured them by daylight, shining in
+the sunlight with snowy decks and glittering engines; she had no idea
+that this spirit of desolation would rise out of the waves and possess
+her. For an hour she sat, dreaming of grey things, for her dreams could
+admit of no colour. After a while, cold and cramped, she went to her
+cabin for her coat. She noticed Mr. Peters and the little widow sitting
+on two deck-chairs in a corner, their faces two blurs in the darkness,
+the widow's tinkling laugh an oversong to his deep voice. Around the bar
+some dozen men were laughing and talking loudly; in the dining saloon a
+few people were playing cards, a few more writing letters, to post in
+Plymouth next day. The thin girl sat with her elbows on the table, her
+chin on her hands, crying. The tears were running down her cheeks, over
+her fingers and dropping on to the table. It seemed less lonely on the
+dark fo'c'sle, so Marcella went back.
+
+It was quite dark now; the mandoline had stopped. From a ventilator
+shaft close by came a deep murmur of conversation from the crew's
+quarters that mingled with her dreams. Aunt Janet, her father, Wullie,
+Dr. Angus, the restless London crowds came and went like pictures
+crossing a screen. Jimmy, the thin girl, Ole Fred and Louis Farne
+followed them, passing on. Suddenly out of the darkness at the other end
+of the great anchor came a sound that was entangled with the wash of the
+waves against the bows of the ship. It was a sob, choked back quickly
+and bursting out again. She crept along the anchor softly. A huddled
+figure was there, looking out to the black sea.
+
+"What's the matter now? It's you, isn't it, Louis?" she said, for she
+was quite sure it was he, even in the darkness. "I could sit and cry
+too, it's so lonely, isn't it?"
+
+"Oh, you're everywhere! And you only poke fun at me," he said in a
+strangled voice.
+
+"I didn't poke fun at you. I only laughed at your trying to pretend you
+were such an exalted person you couldn't travel steerage."
+
+"I d-didn't want y-y-you to think my p-people couldn't afford
+to--to--" he stammered in a low voice.
+
+"Oh, what an idiot you are! My father was always calling me an idiot,
+but if he'd known you! My goodness--he said I was a double-distilled
+one! Whatever are you?"
+
+"There you are, you see," he grumbled.
+
+"But, Louis, whatever does it matter? My people couldn't afford to pay
+more for me, and I don't care who knows it. We'll get there as soon--"
+
+"I--d-don't w-want to g-get there. What's at the end of it? I know very
+well--I'll throw my damned self overboard, and then they'll see what
+they've done."
+
+"Who's they? And what is it they've done?" She had no idea that it was
+an extraordinary thing to take so much interest in a perfect stranger.
+All her world hitherto had had the claims of friendship upon her.
+
+"They never understood me," he cried passionately. "They were always
+trying to tie me down--they were always looking for faults. That's
+enough to make a man go to the devil."
+
+"Is it? Tell me all about it," she said, drawing a little closer.
+
+"Do you know," he cried bitterly, so intent that he forgot his
+nervousness and did not stammer, "I was the best man in my year. They
+all told me so, the Dean and everyone--but I never had a chance. I never
+got a free hand. And now do you know what I am? All because they never
+understood me?"
+
+She shook her head wonderingly.
+
+"I'm a remittance man."
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"Don't you know? They're very picturesque in fiction! You'll find
+h-h-heaps of them in Australia, spewed out as far as possible from the
+Old Country! It's the dumping ground, Australia is!"
+
+"I don't understand," she said.
+
+"I went to church with the Mater last Sunday. I suppose she thought it
+would induce the right atmosphere--something sacrificial, you know. We
+yawped some psalms--the Mater and Pater are great at that. There was
+one bit I noticed particularly--'Moab is my washpot, over Edom will I
+cast my shoe.' That reminds me of Australia. They kick us out, pitch us
+out over there like old boots."
+
+"But don't you _want_ to go?" she protested, frowning. "I'm just dying
+to go. It's such adventure."
+
+"Adventure! Perhaps it is, for you. It depends on how much money you've
+got."
+
+"Ten pounds," she said guilelessly.
+
+"Do you know what they're allowing me? A miserable pound a week! Doled
+out once a week, mind you! Little Louis must toddle up to the General
+Post Office in Sydney every English mail day, and if he says 'please'
+very nicely they'll give him a letter from his mother. It's always from
+his mother. His father 'cannot trust himself to write in a Christian
+spirit,' he says. In the letter is a pound order. That's to keep body
+and soul together."
+
+In his passion of self-pity he forgot to stammer; his words tumbled out
+wildly, between sobbing catches of his breath.
+
+"But who gives you the pound?"
+
+"The Pater, I tell you--so long as I stop there I'm assured of a pound a
+week! If I come any nearer to England the money stops. They probably
+hope I'll commit suicide and save them the expense of the pound a week.
+It'll even save them the expense of a funeral and buying mourning, won't
+it? I'll do it in Sydney, you see."
+
+"But I never heard of such a funny thing in my life! Paid to keep away
+from home! What's the matter with you? What have you done? It's like the
+lepers in the Bible."
+
+"T-that's what they say I am!" he burst out. "They c-call me a disgrace,
+a drunkard! They sent me down from the hospital because they said I was
+a drunkard. The girl I was in love with threw me over because of that.
+She was married three months ago to someone else. That's why I'm here
+now. My third remittance trip--"
+
+He stopped, and she was horrified to hear him sobbing--gasping, choking
+sobs that frightened her.
+
+"I came home--tried my damnedest to get a grip on things, but when she
+did that trick on me I saw red. They've kicked me out now."
+
+"I am so sorry," she said in a low voice. "You must be so unhappy if
+you're a drunkard--whisky--"
+
+She broke off. The old farm came gliding over the waves and settled
+round her with a sense of inevitability. She saw the green baize door;
+she heard the crying of the wind, the scuttering of the rats: she saw
+her father's blazing eyes, red-rimmed and mad. And then she heard him,
+pleading, talking to God. Louis's voice broke in on her dream.
+
+"A drunkard--that's what I am now."
+
+"I didn't think boys were drunkards," she said casually.
+
+"I'm twenty-seven."
+
+"Are you really? All the boys at Lashnagar are grown up when they're
+twenty-seven. You seem so young. You're so shy and queer. I'm nineteen,"
+she added.
+
+"And you know," he burst out in the midst of her words, "they can't
+blame me! It isn't my own fault--they know it's in the family, only they
+haven't the decency to admit it. But I know--different people in my
+family who are cut by the respectable ones--I've raked them out, and
+ever since I've felt hopeless."
+
+"Oh no--no," she cried, suddenly throwing out her hands as if to ward
+off something horrible. Leaning forwards she gripped his shoulder. "It's
+so silly! Besides, think how cowardly it is to say you must do a thing
+because someone else has done it."
+
+"It's killed lots of my people, or landed them in asylums--they're not
+talked about in the family, but I know it," he raved.
+
+"Well, I think you're a perfect idiot," she cried impatiently. "Why, if
+you saw about twenty people on this ship walk overboard in a procession,
+that's no reason why you should do it too, is it?"
+
+"That just shows you don't understand the power of suggestion," he said.
+"At the hospital--I'll never forget it. There was a girl brought in
+dying of burns. We got it from her that she was very unhappy and had set
+herself on fire because the woman next door had been burnt to death. Old
+Professor Hay, our lecturer in psychology, explained it to us. He said
+the girl was in a weak state of nerves and health generally, owing to
+family troubles she'd had to shoulder. She was receptive to suggestion,
+you see. And she was too tired to think logically. Seeing the burnt
+woman there very peaceful, and people sorry for her--don't you see?"
+
+Marcella nodded.
+
+"I'm pretty sure I'd never have got to this state of things if I'd never
+known it was in the family. It seems inevitable, as if I'm working out a
+laid-down law."
+
+"Louis, I'm not very clever. As I told you, father used to call me a
+double-distilled idiot when he got in a temper. But I do think you're
+wrong. People are not a part of families nearly so much as they are
+themselves. Besides--imagine letting anything get you down, and put
+chains on you like that!" she added scornfully.
+
+"You don't know what you're talking about," he said bitterly. "It
+simply chews you up, gnaws holes in you."
+
+She thought of what Dr. Angus had said.
+
+"Well then, patch yourself up and go on again."
+
+"But after all, why should you? There's nobody cares tuppence now what
+happens to me. I'm an outcast."
+
+"Louis, what was that you promised your mother--I heard you on the ship
+just as the tender was going? Didn't you promise to make yourself
+better?"
+
+"Yes, but I've been thinking about it. Why should I? What does it really
+matter to the Mater? She didn't care enough not to have me spewed out of
+home. She's at home now; they'll be sitting round the dinner-table after
+a tip-top meal. Presently they'll be playing whist and congratulating
+themselves that I'm safely out of England. They'll breathe freely now."
+
+"I don't believe it," she said quickly. "Mothers and fathers are not
+like that."
+
+"That's all you know. All day to-day, after she got back from Tilbury
+and had powdered the traces of tears from her face she'd be at Harrods
+or the Stores, buying things. And she'd take just as much interest in
+matching some silks for embroidery, and getting the exact flavour of
+cheese the Pater likes as she took in making me promise not to drink.
+And to-morrow her friends will come, with an air of a funeral about
+them, and be discreetly sympathetic about the terrible trouble she has
+been having with Louis--such a pity--after he promised so well! Oh be
+damned to them all! I'm not going to care any more."
+
+Marcella sat in miserable silence. She did not know enough to say
+anything helpful. She had no idea what had cured her father. She had
+seen him a drunkard; she had seen him ill, no longer a drunkard; she had
+seen him die and guessed dimly that the drinking had killed him. But she
+suddenly grasped the fact that she had seen effects--whole years of
+effects; of causes she knew nothing whatever.
+
+The mandoline began to play again "La Donna e Mobile." Louis's voice
+broke into the music and the lashing water.
+
+"They're cowards, my people, mean little cowards. That's why I'm a
+coward! I'm a beastly, bally sort of half-breed, don't you know! Do you
+know why they give me a pound a week? Partly, of course, it's to bribe
+me to keep away. They've no other weapon but that. But mostly it's
+because they're so miserably sentimental they can't bear to think of me
+starving or sleeping out all night! Ough! If they weren't such miserable
+cowards they'd know I'd be better dead than chained to the end of a row
+of pound-notes. They'd have kicked me out, and let me either buck up or
+die."
+
+"But--oh, I do wish Dr. Angus or Wullie were here! I know there's an
+answer to all that, but I'm such an idiot I can't find it," she cried
+despairingly.
+
+"I'll do them! I'll get my own back on them! I'm damned if I'll do as
+they expect me to. If they'd only seen me last time in Auckland," and he
+gave an ugly laugh. "Do you think I lived on their bally pound a week?
+Why, I spent that in half a day! Sometimes I wouldn't call for it for
+five weeks. I'd go past the Post Office every day, knowing it was there,
+and torturing myself with the thought of what I could buy with it, and
+leaving it there till I'd got five pounds and could drink myself to
+hell!"
+
+She shivered. She could hear him grinding his teeth as he sat close to
+her. She felt the same inarticulate helplessness that she had felt about
+all the miseries of Lashnagar. She wanted, most passionately, to do
+something for him. His telling her about it was, in itself, a challenge.
+
+"But how did you live all the time, wasting your money like that?"
+
+He laughed harshly.
+
+"It's easy to live south the line--in Australasia, anyway, if you're a
+drunkard. There's a lot of money about, you know. Men come from
+up-country with a big cheque to knock out--shearers and men like that,
+who live in the backblocks for months, hundreds of miles from hotels.
+They come down from the backblocks with perhaps a hundred pounds to
+spend on a week of blissful unconsciousness. Sailors come in and get
+paid off too. There's a lot of freehandedness. They treat the whole bar.
+If you won't drink with them, they knock you out of time before you
+know where you are, sit on your chest and pour it down your neck. Once
+you're in a pub in Australia you can stay in all day on nothing. And you
+can get in for threepence--the price of a pint of beer. And you don't
+get out till you're kicked out drunk."
+
+"Oh--" she gasped.
+
+"The devil of it is getting hold of the threepence. Sometimes you meet a
+pal and borrow it. Sometimes you pawn something and get it. If the Home
+boat's in, you go down to the quay, pick out a new chum--that's anyone
+from the Old Country--offer to show him round a bit, and he naturally
+treats you. Then you're in the haven."
+
+He spoke cynically, bitterly. She grasped at his sleeve, as though she
+would pull him back.
+
+"Oh--," she gasped.
+
+"D-don't keep s-saying 'Oh' like that!" he cried impatiently. "S-say
+s-something s-sensible."
+
+"Does your mother know all about the way you live?" she asked
+desperately.
+
+"I told her. I enjoyed letting her know what they drove me to. But she
+doesn't understand. They don't ever understand, these easy, half-alive,
+untempted folks! She's never been away from a world of afternoon calls,
+broughams and shopping! I tell her I'm a beer-bum--yes, that's the word
+for it in Australia! Not a pretty word--not a pretty thing either! I
+gave the Mater and Pater a picture of myself once--broken shoes tied on
+with string, trousers tied on with a bit of rope because I'd sold my
+braces for threepence--slinking along in the gutter outside the Theatre
+Royal picking up cigarette ends that had been thrown away! Counter
+lunches! D'you know what counter lunches are?"
+
+She shook her head. It seemed as though he were trying to shock her, as
+he piled on his miseries to her.
+
+"Three times a day the hotel keeper in Australia covers his counter in
+all sorts of food--cold meat, bread, cheese, pickles, cakes--oh, just
+everything there is going. He doesn't want you to go out to get food,
+you see, and perhaps get caught by some other pub. You don't have to
+pay. You just eat what you like, so long as you go on buying drinks or
+having them bought for you. There's a lot more there to eat than you
+want. You don't want much when you're boozing. I lived on counter
+lunches once--crayfish and celery mostly, with vinegar and cayenne--for
+four months. I spent not a single penny on food the whole time. Then I
+nearly died in hospital. They had me in the padded cell for three days."
+
+"Were you mad?" she whispered, wishing he would tell her no more, but
+fascinated by the horror of it all, the pity of it. "I think you are
+mad, really, even now--talking like this, almost as if you're proud of
+it."
+
+"No, I'm not mad--only the usual pink rat sort of madness. The thing's
+obvious," he said, shrugging his shoulders. It was not obvious to her;
+he had put her into a maelstrom of puzzles, but she did not tell him so.
+She preferred to think it out for herself. But suddenly she coupled her
+little broken arm and the barrel as effect and cause.
+
+He went on muttering. She had great difficulty in hearing all he said.
+
+"At night, at kicking out time, you can hang on, sometimes, to a man
+with some cash and get asked to kip with him for the night. You can get
+a bed for a shilling a night in many places. It isn't a feather-bed. If
+there is no Good Samaritan about you go and lie down in the
+Domain--that's the public park, you know--praying to whatever gods there
+be that it won't rain. You never get a decent wash, and as soon as the
+hotels are open at six o'clock you start again--if you can get the
+entrance fee. If you haven't, you cadge round till you have."
+
+He broke off, staring bitterly away from her, his knees drawn up, his
+chin resting on them.
+
+"And you told your mother about it--and your father?" she said.
+
+"Yes, every word, and more. Things I wouldn't tell you, because you're
+a girl, and I've still some respect for girls. Things that happened in
+Rio and Rosario--some of the women there, the rich women--Lord, they're
+the devil's own!" He reflected grimly. "I told the Pater a few
+things--opened his eyes. He's a publisher--Sunday school prizes and that
+sort of thing. Stacks of money! No imagination. Most people have no
+imagination. They see things in a detached way. They see them, somehow,
+as if they're in print or going on on a stage. But not really
+happening. The Pater simply said I ought to be ashamed of myself--as
+if I'm not!"
+
+He broke off and tried to light a cigarette with fingers that trembled.
+Three, four matches he struck before he got it lighted and puffing. She
+sat silent, listening to the murmur of voices and the swishing water.
+
+"Why the devil I'm telling you this I can't imagine," he said at last.
+"Most girls would have yelled out for help before this."
+
+"I think, you know," she said rather breathless, "I think you're a great
+idiot! You _ask_ for things, don't you?"
+
+"But what is there for a man to do out there? There's nothing I want to
+do except medicine, and that's past for ever now. There's nothing to do
+but get drunk. I've tried, often--got jobs, and all that. But there's no
+inducement--and I've told you how easy it is not to starve."
+
+"But it's so--so beastly! You might as well be dead--you're not happy."
+
+"That's exactly what I think. That's what I'm going to do. I got ten
+pounds out of the Mater. She's always ready to give me anything if it
+happens to be the beginning of the month and she's well off. The Pater
+solemnly presented me with three pounds--that's ten shillings a week for
+smokes for the six weeks of the trip. I'll buy bull's-eyes with it, I
+think. That'd please him. That makes thirteen pounds, and there's ten
+pounds waiting for me in Sydney. I'll have a damned good bust-up then,
+and then I'll finish the job for ever."
+
+"Oh, I do think you're mad--raving mad!" she cried, and could say
+nothing else.
+
+"Of course it's by no means certain I'll have enough courage to kill
+myself. I rather doubt it! You see, they didn't breed me with courage.
+They've given me porridge in my veins instead of blood! They press
+electric buttons for their emotions and keep them down as long as is
+respectable! They didn't give me grit at all--they gave me convention
+and respectability. Everything I wanted to do they restrained because
+so many of the things I wanted to do seemed natural but were not
+respectable. And in the end they made a first-class liar of me." There
+was a long, terrible silence.
+
+"To-night, for a bit, I'm stripped bare here," he said in a low voice,
+"letting you see me. To-morrow I'll be a nervous, stammering fool,
+hiding all I feel, swanking like hell about my people, myself and
+everyone I've ever seen, like I was doing to-day when you told me off so
+beautifully. To-morrow I'll be drunk, and I'll lie to you till all's
+blue. To-night I'm just honest."
+
+"Why is it that you're honest with me?" she asked him.
+
+"Lord knows! I suppose it's because I'll disintegrate and go over the
+side in shivers if I can't get something off my chest. You don't seem
+disgusted with me--Lord, everyone else is! And I'm the loneliest devil
+on earth."
+
+"I'm glad you told me. Let's be friends, Louis--till we get to Sydney,
+anyway."
+
+"I never have friends. I lie to them, and they find me out. I borrow
+money from them and don't pay it back, and then I'm afraid to face them.
+I make fools of them in public; I'm irritable with them."
+
+"I'm warned," she said with a laugh. "I'm not afraid of you."
+
+Suddenly he turned round. All the time he had been talking his back
+had been half turned to her. She saw the crimson end of the cigarette
+glowing. It was flung overboard. He groped for and found both her hands.
+
+"Look here, this is the maddest thing I've ever done yet--but will you
+take it on, being friends with me?"
+
+"I want to. I'm lonely, you know. I could have cried to-night, really."
+
+"But--look here. I'm begging, yes begging, this of you. When I lie to
+you, insult me, will you? You'll know. You've seen me honest to-night,
+but sometimes a thing gets hold of me and I lie like hell! I'll tell you
+the most amazing, most circumstantial tales--just as you told me this
+afternoon--and you'll believe me. But I implore you, don't believe me!
+Heaps of people have lent me money because they've believed what I've
+told them about my wife or my mother or my child dying. Lord, I'm a
+waster! But if I can find someone who'll be hard with me, I think I
+might make a stand. Look here, I promised the Mater, as this was my last
+week at home, and I haven't had a drink since Monday. That's four days
+to the good. If I promise you there's a faint chance I won't do it. Do
+you mind?"
+
+"I'll watch you," she said calmly. "And I'll tell you if you tell me
+lies. But I don't believe you'll do any such thing!"
+
+"Don't you? Do you believe in me?" he cried.
+
+"Why not? I think you're a fearful duffer, but naturally I believe in
+you," she said calmly.
+
+"I know why I came by this ship! It's a miracle. I believe I'm going to
+make a stand now, I really do! It's fate, and nothing else. There's an
+Anchor boat I was to have gone by--via the Cape, you know. She sailed
+last week, and I couldn't get off in time. I wanted to wait for the next
+as I've not been to the Cape. But the Pater couldn't put up with me for
+another week, so out I came! I know why I came! I came to meet you!"
+
+"Do you think so?" she said wonderingly.
+
+"I do! I've never in all my life told the truth about myself before! If
+you only knew what that means! I'm too nervous as a rule. But don't you
+notice the difference? Of course you're not trained, so you wouldn't
+notice as I should. But I'm not even stammering half so much. It's jolly
+good of you to listen to me--and it's jolly good for me, because I've no
+reason to try to get at you, or to get my own back on you, as I have
+with my people all the time."
+
+Marcella felt very small, very helpless. She had a sudden vision of a
+man dying in an agony of poisoning while she stood frantic in a doctor's
+laboratory, antidotes all round her, but no knowledge in her brain of
+which drug to use. And all the time his agony went on, and death drew
+nearer. She had not the least idea in the world what to do for Louis
+Fame. He frightened her, he disgusted her, he made her feel hungrily
+anxious to help, he made her feel responsible and yet helpless, but at
+the same time it mattered and challenged her that he had appealed to her
+at all. She thought of her father, and remembered with a pang that she
+knew nothing about him except superficially. She thought of his books,
+but nothing in them seemed helpful. She thought of the Bible, of her
+poetry, her legends. They were a blur, a mist. Nothing in them held out
+a hand to hail her. There seemed nothing that she could do.
+
+"Oh," she cried passionately, "I'm such a fool. If only I was clever! If
+only I knew what to do."
+
+Before she had finished speaking came a flash of insight, and she went
+on, in the same breath, "But there's one thing that occurs to me. You
+think about yourself far too much. Old Wullie--I'll tell you about him
+some day--used to say that if we were quiet and didn't fuss about
+ourselves too much God would walk along our lives and help us to kill
+beasts--like whisky--"
+
+"God? Oh, I'm fed up with God! I've had too much of that all my life at
+home," he said dully.
+
+She had no answer for that, but as she bade him good night at the top of
+the companion-way she saw herself in armour. Her vague dreams of John
+the Baptist, of Siegfried and of Britomart suddenly crystallized, and
+she saw herself, very self-consciously, the Deliverer who would save
+Louis Fame. It did not occur to her to wonder if he were worth saving.
+He was imprisoned in the first windmill she had encountered on her Don
+Quixote quest--and so he was to be rescued.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+She wakened to a world of blue and silver next morning; the sunlight
+seemed to come from the sea with a cold, hard glitter; there was a
+keenness in the air, a sharp tang of sea-salt with an underlying
+suggestion of something that was pleasantly reminiscent of Dr. Angus's
+surgery. The sailors were sluicing the deck with great hoses, and
+sprinkling it with little watering-cans of disinfectant. Up on the
+fo'c'sle her deck-chair was side by side with another on which "L. F."
+was stencilled; after breakfast she went there with a book, expecting
+Louis to follow her. Presently Jimmy discovered her, bringing three
+other children with him, and they sat with shining eyes while she told
+them fairy-tales.
+
+When they drew into Plymouth Harbour the fo'c'sle was cleared, and
+Marcella watched a few people going ashore. Not very many went: they had
+not been at sea long enough to welcome a change on land, and the
+_Oriana_ only stayed two hours to take on mails and passengers.
+
+All that day she did not see Louis. Once or twice she heard him in his
+cabin, speaking to the man who shared it with him; not once did he put
+in an appearance at meals, and even at the melancholy hour of twilight
+he hid himself somewhere. She began to feel a little neglected.
+
+It was easy to make friends: there were so many children to act as
+introducers. It was interesting to watch people forming little cliques;
+the pock-marked man had now a collection of eight; they went ashore at
+Plymouth and came back again talking excitedly, with little snatches of
+song. Mr. Peters and Mrs. Hetherington, the bright-haired little widow,
+were inseparable; one of the farm lads had forsaken Ole Fred already for
+a shy, red-cheeked emigrant girl, who giggled a good deal in corners
+with him; they sat for long hours, as the trip went on, saying nothing,
+staring out vacantly to sea, and occasionally holding each other's
+hands. At tea-time Marcella saw Louis come to the door of the saloon,
+look round with a frown, become very red in the face as he saw several
+people look at him casually, and beat a hasty retreat. She had a long
+talk with the thin girl during the evening, learning that she had been
+under-housemaid in a girls' school; she asked Marcella her name,
+volunteering the information that she was Phyllis Mayes, only her
+friends called her Diddy; she seemed to have got over much of her grief
+at parting with her sister. After a while she explained, blushing and
+giggling, that one of the cook's assistants had made friends with her
+the previous night and given her two meringues.
+
+"A friend of mine who came out as a stewardess told me the best thing
+you could do was to make friends with the cooks or the butchers--because
+there's all sorts of little tit-bits they can get for you. Young
+Bill--him that gave me the meringues--has got a mate called Winkle. I'll
+give you an intro., if you like. He's quite a toff. He's been a waiter."
+
+Marcella made some excuse, but when Phyllis--or Diddy--went away to her
+appointment with Bill she sat for a long time thinking. She was already
+feeling disillusioned.
+
+At nine o'clock she decided to go below. In the shadow of the steps
+leading to the upper deck Mr. Peters and Mrs. Hetherington were sitting
+very close together. A little bright tray was at their feet, and a big
+bottle with a cap and scarf of gold foil stood sentinel over two glasses
+of such an exquisite shape that Marcella stared hard at them as she
+passed, saying "Good night." Mr. Peters was smiling with filmy, vacuous
+eyes. The little lady was flushed and vivid-looking. They both nodded
+beamingly at her. At the other side of the steps, in the bright light of
+the electric lamp was a small bundle, between two scarlet fire buckets.
+It was Jimmy.
+
+His hands were very dirty, his neck and back looked uncomfortably
+twisted. She touched him gently and he wakened with a start.
+
+"Jimmy, what's to do? You ought to be in bed," she said.
+
+"I'm waiting for dad," he explained, blinking and stretching. "My, it
+does make your neck stiff."
+
+"Come with me, and I'll put you in bed."
+
+"Must wait for dad," he protested.
+
+"You'll be too tired to play to-morrow. You'll be dropping asleep all
+day."
+
+"Then he'll go to sleep on the floor, and have a bad back," he said.
+
+"Whyever does he go to sleep on the floor?"
+
+"Because he's too tired, like I was. Only if I take my boots off and
+kick him--very kindly, I have to kick--he wakes up and he's cross and
+then he gets into bed."
+
+He stared at her, frowning, as though trying to understand or else to
+explain this queerness of his father's. Next minute he found himself
+clasped firmly in her arms. He was very thin and light--much thinner
+than the Mactavish babies and Jock's children.
+
+She marched up to Mr. Peters.
+
+"I'm putting Jimmy to bed, Mr. Peters. It's late and cold." Then she
+added, "May I?"
+
+"Plezh--plezh--my dear," he said, smiling foolishly.
+
+"Sweet of you--dear little chap," twittered the little lady.
+
+They passed a group of some dozen men sitting round a brown blanket
+hedged with a fence of tumblers. They were watching a game of cards. The
+pock-marked man looked up from the pile of cards in front of him and
+grinned at Jimmy.
+
+"You find it easier to get off than I do, son," he shouted. Jimmy kicked
+out at him as they passed, and there was a roar of laughter.
+
+"I hate him--he's like the Beast," said the child as they went down the
+companion-way.
+
+"Poor man--he can't help that. The Beast turned into a prince, didn't
+he?"
+
+"He's a nasty man. He sleeps in with us. And the man with no fingers.
+Ugh, they're dreadful. They stayed awake all night and so did daddy. And
+they wouldn't let me put the bottles through the porthole this morning.
+They put them themselves, and I did so want to see them go smash."
+
+Marcella stopped dead. Things were trickling into her mind. She saw her
+father and her little thin arm dangling sickeningly when he broke it
+years ago; all her childish terrors of him came back, associated with
+the whisky, changed into a general terror of anything that was a father.
+She saw Jimmy's little arm broken--and there were three of them in that
+tiny cabin to break his little arm!
+
+"Oh, poor wee mannie! Jimmy, ye're just going to sleep in my little
+house."
+
+He started to dance with joy, holding on to her hand and hopping on one
+foot in the alley-way. Then his face clouded over.
+
+"There'll be nobody to make daddy get in bed, then," he said.
+
+"Well--"
+
+"His back'll be bad to-morrow if he lies on the floor."
+
+"The ugly man will make him go to bed, because if he doesn't they won't
+have anywhere to walk," she said, determined to save his arm at any
+cost.
+
+"D'you think so?" he asked eagerly.
+
+"Yes, quite sure. He'll be quite safe. Where's your nighty?"
+
+He darted into Number 15 and came back with a minute bundle.
+
+"I don't have to have nighties now. Gran said I was grown up now I was
+coming to Australia. So I wear pyjamas, made out of the same stuff as
+Dad's," he explained, undressing hurriedly and putting them on with
+considerable pride. "Last night was the first time I wore them. Only
+Daddy never looked, with those other men there."
+
+A lump came into Marcella's throat as he neatly folded his clothes and
+laid them in a heap on the floor.
+
+"There's a pocket, look!" he said, afraid that she would miss any of the
+proud points of his pyjamas. "Gran put a silver sixpence in it, for
+luck, and a little letter. But I can't read yet."
+
+He fumbled in the pocket which was just big enough for his hand. There
+was the sixpence and a little handkerchief with rabbits sitting perkily
+at each corner. The letter was a small text-card with a bright rosebud
+painted on it.
+
+"Read it," he said, watching her anxiously. "Granny read it to me when
+she put it there."
+
+"Call upon me in the time of trouble," she read. He nodded.
+
+"That's right. Now put it back. Gran said I must never lose it, and some
+day if I remembered it, it might come in handy."
+
+She tucked it safely away and he started to climb into bed.
+
+"Jimmy, I always get washed before bed, don't you?" she suggested.
+
+"Oh yes. I promised Gran. But it's hard to remember everything," he said
+resignedly. But his washing was not very comprehensive; Marcella
+promised herself a busy half-hour with him in the bathroom next morning.
+
+He was asleep in two minutes, but Marcella did not attempt to undress
+for a long time. She dragged the cabin trunk out from under the bunk
+very quietly, and, sitting down on it, frowned. A queer thing had
+happened to her. Over all her early life her father had towered like a
+Colossus. The rest of the world had been filled with friends--friendly
+visions, friendly people, friendly ghosts. She had not met anyone unkind
+before. Conditions had never been anything but unkind; she expected cold
+and hunger, hardness and discomfort. But that people could be unkind to
+each other she had never realized. Then had come Louis's tale, which had
+horrified her, Diddy's tale which had grieved her at first and then
+puzzled her as she saw how easily the image of the sick girl was
+replaced by that of a man who gave her meringues. Ole Fred had
+frightened her: Mr. Peters had at first seemed ridiculous and then
+cruel. Most of the people on the ship seemed cruel, when she came to
+reflect about it. Something cruel had happened that very morning. She
+had noticed, when they came aboard at Tilbury, a very romantic figure
+standing on deck; he fitted in much better with her conceptions of
+travel in far lands than did the very respectable, commonplace fathers
+of families she saw scattered about the deck. He was a man in knee
+breeches, leather leggings, a bright blue shirt and a claret and buff
+blazer. He wore a wide-brimmed brown hat and a fierce expression. From
+his leather belt hung a huge clasp knife and two small pistols. She
+thought him very funny, but very much like herself when she had dressed
+up as King Arthur. She sympathized entirely with his dressing a part.
+Later she heard shouts of cruel laughter as he explained valiantly that
+he had never in his life been from his native village in the Welsh
+hills--that Australia was a new country that needed to be "opened up." He
+quoted Manville Fenn and other writers of boys' adventure stories thirty
+or forty years old to show the dangers of Australia and his own
+indomitable courage in tackling them: he told of Captain Cook's heart
+and many other blood-curdling tales, and was greeted with ironical
+cheers and laughter. They explained to him at great length all about the
+civilization of Australia, and when, an hour after the Devon coast had
+dropped below the horizon he became miserably sea-sick, they formed a
+procession before him, carrying fire buckets, brandy and beer to his
+assistance.
+
+Marcella was muddled. She frowned and got no nearer a solution to her
+puzzles, until she remembered that, right at the top of her trunk, put
+in at the last moment, was a Golden Treasury her mother gave her years
+ago.
+
+She turned the pages to the end, looking for something she remembered
+that seemed to fit in with her mood. In the Ode on the Intimations of
+Immortality she read it--
+
+"Blank misgivings of a creature
+Moving about in worlds not realized,"
+
+she murmured. "Well, that means that I'm not the only one. Wordsworth
+evidently got worried about things like I do. But it's the
+cruelty--that's what I can't understand."
+
+There was a little comfort in that thought as she fell asleep: it gave
+her a sense of comradeliness that anyone so eminently sane as Wordsworth
+should have had "blank misgivings."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+Blue and silver had turned to blue and gold next morning; the light no
+longer seemed to come from the sea in bright glitters; it was transfused
+through the air as liquid gold, very mellow and soothing and softened.
+It was five o'clock when she wakened. Through the open port she could
+see the sea swelling gently, breaking into a little hesitating ripple of
+foam here and there. She climbed very carefully down from her bunk;
+Jimmy was still sleeping soundly. There was no one about save a few deck
+hands scrubbing up above; they were out of sight of land now, and she
+gave a deep sigh of exhilaration as she turned on the sea-water spigot
+of the bath and, opening the port wide, felt the keen morning breezes
+blowing in upon her. Coming out ten minutes later, pink-cheeked and
+damp-haired, she met Louis in pyjamas, hurrying along with a towel over
+his arm.
+
+"Were you ill yesterday?" she said, standing in front of him. "I could
+hear your bunk creaking lots of times in the night, and once or twice
+you gave the partition an almighty crack."
+
+"Oh, I'm all right," he said, dashing past without looking at her.
+
+"I suppose," she called softly, with mischief in her eyes, "that you are
+intentionally making for the women's bathroom? Someone might want to use
+it and be horrified to see you emerging--"
+
+"Laughing at me again, aren't you?" he cried savagely, turning with a
+scowl and standing undecided.
+
+She hurried below to give him a chance to retire gracefully.
+
+When she was in a white frock and Jimmy shining with soap and water,
+they took their places at the breakfast-table. Mr. Peters looked at
+Jimmy in surprise.
+
+"Hello! I never noticed you get up," he said.
+
+"He slept in my cabin," she explained. "He was frightened."
+
+"Very kind of you, I'm sure, young lady," he said and turned to Mrs.
+Hetherington, who looked at Marcella calculatingly between narrow lids.
+As soon as breakfast was over she put her arm confidingly through
+Marcella's and drew her aside.
+
+"Come for a little stroll, dear, won't you? I can see that you're
+different from most of the passengers--they're so common so terribly
+common. I've regretted very much that I came third class. It wasn't that
+I wanted to save money, you know," her voice twittered to little
+inarticulacies.
+
+"Most of the people are very interesting," said Marcella.
+
+"I find poor Mistah Petahs interesting, very," said Mrs. Hetherington,
+pressing Marcella's arm. "Losing my dear husband, and he losing his
+wife--it's a bond, isn't it? And I feel so sorry for a poor man with a
+child to bring up."
+
+"Um--" said Marcella doubtfully.
+
+"It's sweet of you to mother the little fellow, dear. He must be a great
+trouble to poor Mistah Petahs! I have two little darlings, but I find
+that boarding school suits them much better than being with me. I think
+that children need both father and mother, don't you?"
+
+"Yes," said Marcella dazedly, unable to follow Mrs. Hetherington's
+reasoning.
+
+"And you know," she went on, "I've a terrible feeling that poor Mistah
+Petah's loneliness might lead him to--er--Oh dreadful things." She
+dropped her voice to a whisper. "My dear--I believe he drinks," she
+said, underlining the words. "I tried my best to look after him last
+night," she added plaintively.
+
+"Oh, did you?" said Marcella and suddenly stopped dead. "All this
+looking after! What are we all up to? Is it impudence or vanity, or what
+is it? I don't know! Anyway, I'm going below," and she turned abruptly
+away.
+
+As it was Sunday Marcella lost her crowd of children, who were claimed
+for a church service by an enthusiastic missionary in the first class.
+She spent the morning writing letters and reading. When she went to her
+cabin to get ready for lunch there was a note pinned on to the mirror.
+She took it down in surprise.
+
+"I don't know your name," she read; "but I must see you. I've been going
+through hell and I can't hold out. I understand myself very well; I know
+what I need, but I can't do it. I've got to have someone to make me do
+things. And if you make me do things I'll get huffy with you and try to
+deceive you. It's pretty hopeless, isn't it? That pock-marked devil has
+been trying to get me. That's why I've been taking to cover all this
+time, partly. Come up on the fo'c'sle to-night at seven. I'll be
+sitting on the anchor. For God's sake come. And don't laugh at me, will
+you? I can't stand it. L. F."
+
+Without pausing she took paper and pencil and wrote.
+
+"I shall be there. Of course I shall not laugh at you. I cannot
+understand anything. I am sorry to admit this, because you will say I am
+like your parents. I am in muddles myself, but I am most sorry for you.
+And my name is Marcella Lashcairn of Lashnagar."
+
+She put it in an envelope, addressed it to him, tapped on his door and
+pushed it under.
+
+She went on deck that afternoon in a state of bubbling excitement. There
+were not many people about. They were just getting into the Bay of
+Biscay and the _Oriana_ was rolling a little; many had succumbed to
+sea-sickness; many more were afraid of it and had gone to lie down in
+their bunks. She took some books to read but did not open them for a
+long time until the sea-glare had made her eyes ache.
+
+Then she opened "Questing Cells," which she had decided to try to master
+during the voyage. She read a page, understanding much better than when
+she had read it to her father. But she was pulled up over the word
+"inhibition."
+
+It was a chapter of generalization at the end of the book that she was
+trying to fathom.
+
+_"Women have no inhibitions: their pretended inhibitions serve exactly
+the same purpose as the civet-cat's scent of musk, the peacock's
+gorgeous tail, the glow-worm's lamp. A woman's inhibitions are
+invitations. Women do not exist--per se. They are merely the vehicles of
+existence. If they fail to reproduce their kind, they have failed in
+their purpose; they are unconsciously ruled by the philoprogenitive
+passion; it is their raison d'etre, for it they are fed, clothed,
+trained, bred. Existing for the race, they enjoy existence merely in the
+preliminary canter. Small brained, short-visioned, they lose sight
+of the race and desire the preliminary canter, with its excitements and
+promises, to continue indefinitely."_
+
+The word "philoprogenitive" and the French phrase stopped her.
+
+"Why on earth I didn't bring a dictionary," she said, "passes my
+comprehension! I'll write the words down and ask someone."
+
+A young man was sitting on the deck a few yards away, his back against a
+capstan. He looked supremely uncomfortable trying to read a little
+blue-backed book.
+
+Marcella looked at Louis's chair empty beside her.
+
+"Wouldn't you like to sit on this chair?" she said, and the young man
+looked up startled.
+
+"You look so uncomfortable there. This chair isn't being used. Won't you
+sit down?"
+
+"That's very good of you. I was getting a decided crick in my back," he
+said, sitting down and wondering whether to go on reading or to
+entertain her. Marcella looked at him; he was the epitome of propriety,
+the spirit of the Sabbath incarnate in his neat black suit, gold
+watch-chain and very high collar.
+
+"I really asked you to sit here for quite a selfish reason," she said.
+"I want to know the meanings of some words that have just cropped up.
+You look as if you know."
+
+The young man coughed and looked pleased.
+
+"I am a schoolmaster," he remarked. "Probably I can--"
+
+"Inhibition?" she interrupted.
+
+"Inhibition?" he said. "That means 'holding back.' Latin '_habeo_, I
+have' or 'I hold' and 'in--"
+
+"Women have no inhibitions," she repeated; "no power of holding back."
+
+She frowned, and decided to return to that later. "Now
+philoprogenitive," she said turning to him. He stared at her, coughed
+again and held out his hand for the book.
+
+"That's rather a difficult book for a girl to be reading, isn't it?" he
+said, glancing at the title page. "Oh, Kraill the biologist? Whatever
+makes you read that? I thought girls read Mrs. Barclay and Charles
+Garvice."
+
+"I have not read any of their books yet," she said. "I read this book
+some time ago, and it seemed to me to hold the whole illumination of
+life. But since I've been on this ship I've been in a muddle about
+things. People are not a bit like I thought they would be. I was awake
+hours last night trying to get right about it."
+
+"They're not a very nice collection here--in the steerage. But
+the difference in fare between steerage and second is very
+considerable--very considerable," he sighed. "My profession must take
+care of the financial aspect of life."
+
+Marcella felt that he was honest. He was the first passenger who had
+admitted that he had not unlimited wealth.
+
+"That's refreshing. Most of the people here want one to think they are
+disguised millionaires only travelling steerage to enquire into the ways
+of poorer folks. And that's part of my puzzle. I want to know _why_
+these people are not a very nice collection. Is my taste at fault? Last
+night I raked out my 'Golden Treasury' and read about 'Blind misgivings
+of a creature roaming about in worlds not realized.'"
+
+"You misquote," he murmured. "'Blank' not 'blind' and 'moving' not
+'roaming.'"
+
+She shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"Of course," he said with an air of depth and of conscious helpfulness,
+"the most difficult thing on earth--and, I may remark, the most
+important--is realization of one's sphere, and one's place in that
+sphere. And our way of instructing the young in such realization is
+defective, defective to a degree at present. Queerly enough I am just
+reading Tagore on 'Realization.' You know Tagore, of course?"
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"He is the Bengali poet who was recently honoured by His Majesty with a
+knighthood. Perhaps you would like to change books and see what he says?
+I have marked something on page sixteen that is helpful, particularly
+helpful."
+
+"Thank you. But take care of my book, won't you? It is very precious,
+because it belonged to my father."
+
+She looked into "Realization," but its cool calmness failed to grip her
+at first, and she lay back in her chair, the breeze fanning her hair,
+the deep blue of the sky flecked with little cirrus clouds above her as
+she dreamed. Presently the schoolmaster went below for tea, and she was
+left alone. She had decided that she did not want tea; after this quiet
+place the saloon seemed too noisy, and now that seven o'clock was
+drawing nearer she was feeling rather frightened.
+
+The gold in the air was collected into a great ball that turned crimson
+in the west, touching the crests of the waves with red as though blood
+had been splashed upon them, setting Marcella's hair afire, turning her
+white frock rosy-pink. Two bells sounded, and the sea and the sky grew
+deep blue, while shadows began to slink about the decks and stalk over
+the water; grey veils fell over the western sky, and she sat up
+straight, wondering where Louis was.
+
+Quarter-past seven--twenty-past--and the quick twilight with its message
+of melancholy was almost past. Three bells sounded, and on the upper
+deck she saw the saloon passengers going in to dinner. Then she started
+up.
+
+"He said he was horribly shy and nervous--anyone can see he is, too. I
+suppose he's frightened, now."
+
+For a moment she stood leaning over the rail, her face turned towards
+the stairway, waiting. Then her feet took her down the steps, along the
+deck, past the engine-room towards the companion-way. Diddy and a young
+man in white sat on the step of the cook's galley in a hot atmosphere
+redolent of food; she was eating an orange. Under the steps Mr. Peters
+and Mrs. Hetherington sat in shadow; further away, up the deck, the
+young missionary had collected a group of children and women who were
+singing "There's a Friend for Little Children" all out of tune. She
+looked round almost motivelessly before she went below. A splash of
+light and a volley of laughter from the bar broke through the hymn
+singing. She turned quickly. Inside the bar, which was arranged like a
+great window with sliding panels, stood a little man with bright black
+eyes, wearing a white coat. Behind him were rows upon rows of bottles
+and bright shining glasses; a cash register was on the counter. Leaning
+against it, his face amazingly merry, his eyes shining, was Louis,
+talking volubly without the suspicion of a stammer. In his hand was a
+tumbler.
+
+Marcella felt her knees getting weak, though she scarcely realized that
+she was frightened; she felt that there was going to be a fight of some
+sort, though she did not rightly realize her enemy. Then, justly or
+unjustly, her fears crystallized and she had something tangible to
+fight, for the pock-marked man was standing beside Louis, patting him on
+the back and smiling at him.
+
+The words of Louis' letter flashed into the depths of her mind: _"That
+pock-marked man's a devil--he's trying to get me."_
+
+She made her frightened feet go nearer. Ole Fred saw her and grinned.
+
+"Come for that drink, miss?" he asked. She scowled at him; if she had
+been nine instead of nineteen it would have been called deliberately
+"making a face." Then she looked past him to Louis.
+
+"I've been waiting for you half an hour, Louis."
+
+"I'm not coming," he said, looking away from her awkwardly. "Y-you've
+b-better c-company than m-mine."
+
+She flushed and felt herself trembling with temper. A flash from her
+father's eyes lit up her face as she said quickly:
+
+"No, I haven't. I want to talk to you."
+
+"I c-can't l-leave these chaps now. I'll s-see you to-morrow," he said
+sullenly.
+
+"Oh no, you'll not. What's to do, Louis? You said you wanted to see me,
+and there I was waiting for you, and feeling so lonely."
+
+"Go on, ole man. Take her in a dark corner somewhere. Wants a spoon
+pretty bad," said the red-haired man. "The bar don't close till eleven,
+an' we'll have some in Number 15 if you're too late."
+
+Marcella treated him to one of her scowls that astonished him, and
+suddenly, setting his teeth, Louis put down his glass, took her arm
+roughly and, striding along blindly, made forrard.
+
+Until they got into the privacy of the fo'c'sle neither spoke. She was
+breathless, partly with indignation, partly with indefinable fear and
+partly with the breakneck speed at which he had rushed her along the
+deck. He sat down on the anchor; she stood before him, her back to the
+rail, which she gripped with her hands. Her first impulse was to shake
+him thoroughly. But she resisted it as she heard him groan.
+
+"Never--never in all my life have I imagined there could be anyone so
+utterly rude as you, and so utterly mad. What on earth do you think
+you're doing?" she said breathlessly.
+
+To her surprise he spoke quite quietly.
+
+"I got mad with you. I can see now I was a fool."
+
+"But why should you get mad with me? And even if you did, is that any
+reason why you should go and--and--what was that beastly word?--beer-bum
+with those awful men?"
+
+"I--I--s-saw you--s-sitting here th-this afternoon--t-talking t-to a
+man," he stammered, covering his face with his hand.
+
+"Yes, I was. Why not?"
+
+"In--in m-my chair!"
+
+"Oh, my goodness! You great baby!" she cried.
+
+"I w-was c-coming up with s-some t-tea for you and--and th-there I s-saw
+another man," he jerked out, overcome by the pathos of it. "I th-threw
+it overboard."
+
+"But supposing there had been sixteen men, why shouldn't I talk to
+them?"
+
+"I d-don't w-want you to. I w-wanted to talk to you."
+
+"Well!" She could find nothing else to say in her astonishment.
+
+"Don't you see that's enough to start me drinking?" he burst out
+passionately. "Whenever I get hipped about anything--I--t-told you I
+know myself very well. I'd only h-had one drink when you came along. Did
+you notice me?"
+
+"_Notice_ you! Oh no!" she cried scornfully.
+
+"Y-you know w-what a nervous f-fool I am; how I'm afraid of my own
+shadow. But when I've had only one whisky I'd tackle Satan himself! You
+must have noticed that I was jolly enough then! I used to be the
+ringleader in all the stunts at the hospital. But when I don't drink I'm
+afraid to face people. Do you know I haven't had a meal since I came
+aboard, except your piece of cake and the tea I've made? And now I've
+thrown my teapot overboard."
+
+"But whyever haven't you had a meal?"
+
+"All those damn fools in the saloon are looking at me!"
+
+"Oh, you idiot!" she cried, and suddenly sat down on the anchor beside
+him, all her indignation at the personal slight and the personal
+annoyance gone.
+
+"You see how it is, Marcella," he groaned. "I can call you Marcella,
+can't I? Just till we get to Sydney. It sounds a Roman, fighting sort of
+name. You see how wobbly I am! I've had the devil's own time since we
+left Tilbury, lying there in my bunk, thinking, thinking--and the more
+I think the more sorry I get for myself, and the more I hate other
+people, and the more nervous I get. I knew I was in for a bad attack.
+I always do when I get away from home. Reaction I suppose. I put up the
+devil of a fight, and then when I felt it was whacking me I wrote to
+you."
+
+"Well, I said I'd come, didn't I? And I waited," she reminded him.
+
+"Yes, and then I saw you talking to that idiotic fellow in a high
+collar, and I thought, 'Oh, everything be damned!' So I chummed up to
+the pock-marked chap. He was glad enough to have me! Wants me to play
+poker."
+
+He buried his face, and she could scarcely hear his words.
+
+"Oh, God," he muttered, "you can see how it is! All the time I'm not
+drunk I'm worrying and thinking what a hell of a mess I've made of
+things. Th-the minute I'm even sniffing whisky I see everything in a
+warm, rosy glow. When I'm not drunk everyone's an enemy; when I'm drunk
+they're all jolly good fellows. Marcella, I'm alone on earth, and I
+don't want to be."
+
+She sat there, impatient with herself for her ignorance, her hands
+clasping and unclasping each other nervously.
+
+"Louis--" she began. She could get no further. "Louis--what's one to do?
+You say you're a doctor and understand yourself. It seems to me you've
+really a disease, haven't you? Just as much as--as measles?"
+
+"Of course it's a disease! But don't you see how hopeless it is? It's a
+disease in which the nurse and the doctor both get the huff with the
+patient because he's such a damned nuisance to them! And he, poor devil,
+by the very nature of the disease, fights every step of the treatment."
+
+There was a long silence. At last she put her hand on his arm.
+
+"You know you want to be happy, don't you? You say you don't want to be
+lonely. That's why you drink the miserable stuff, to make you forget
+that you're unhappy and friendless."
+
+"Yes--you do understand, you see," he cried eagerly.
+
+"Well, this is where I'm so puzzled. I'm quite happy, and I always
+think people are my friends. What I want to know is what is there inside
+us two that's different?"
+
+He shook his head impatiently.
+
+"It's in my family," he began, and she felt it on the tip of her tongue
+to tell him it was in hers too, but something stopped her. "And it's a
+hunger--absolutely an unendurable hunger."
+
+"Were you always frightened of things?" she said, a little wonderingly.
+
+"No--I was always nervy and shy and repressed. But this is a vicious
+circle, don't you see? A thing is called a vicious circle in medicine
+when cause and effect are so closely linked that you can't tell which is
+which. At home I was repressed; that was the fashion in my young days.
+The motto was, 'Children are to be seen and not heard.' I dodged
+visitors always; when I met them by any chance I was always a fool with
+them, blinking and stammering like anything. When I was first at the
+hospital among men I was gawky until quite by chance I discovered that
+whisky made me graceful, stopped the stammering, gave me a surprising
+flow of eloquence and made me feel a damned fine chap. Naturally I went
+at it like anything, and of course after each burst was more nervous
+than ever. It plays havoc with your nerves, you know. And in addition
+I had a sense of guilt.--Oh, damn life!"
+
+"Yes," she said slowly. She understood what a vicious circle was now.
+"You drank to stop yourself being nervous. The stuff makes you
+temporarily happy, and then even more nervous afterwards. So you drink
+more. Oh, my goodness, how silly!"
+
+"But you don't take into account what a hunger it is, you know," he said
+in a low voice. "You don't understand that. I don't think there can be
+such another hunger on earth, even love."
+
+"Oh--" she started to speak, and stopped. She had never thought of
+love like that, and wanted to tell him so, but that seemed to be
+side-tracking. So she went on, "Has it occurred to you that it will make
+you ill, kill you in time?"
+
+"Do you think I've had five years at a hospital without seeing
+alcoholism?" he said bitterly. "Oh, I know all the diseases--I shall go
+mad, I expect. My brain's much weaker than my body."
+
+"I suppose you think it's very nice to go mad?" she said, hating herself
+for the futility of her words, wishing she had books or preachments to
+hurl at him and convince him.
+
+"Oh, what's it matter?" he said wearily. "Who cares?"
+
+"Have you any idea how horrible it is, Louis?" she asked solemnly, with
+all the tragedy of the farm behind her words, compelling him to look at
+her.
+
+"Most diseases are horrible--what about cancer?" he said coolly.
+
+"But people can't help cancer, and they can--at least I think so--help
+your sort of illness. Louis, I saw the two people I love best on earth
+dying. One of them died of cancer, the other of drink. I wasn't going to
+tell you that. But when you said it was in your family I was going to
+tell you that was no argument. It's been in my family for generations
+and generations. I suppose it's in everyone's to some extent. It has
+wiped out all my family. But it certainly is not going to wipe out me. I
+perhaps should not talk about my family to you, a stranger. Yet somehow
+I feel that father would not mind my telling you about him, if it can
+help you from suffering as he did. He cured himself."
+
+"How?" he cried with sudden, breathless hopefulness.
+
+"There, that's the awfulness of it. I don't know. I only know that one
+day he was drunk, and the next day he was not, and never was again. He
+said he gave all his burden to God."
+
+He shook himself impatiently.
+
+"Oh, I can't believe in all that rot!" he said harshly. "I neither trust
+God nor myself."
+
+Below deck the mandoline began to twang again, and the soft Italian
+voice went on with "La Donna E Mobile" interminably.
+
+"Louis, listen to me," she said quietly. "I'm not going to let you die
+like father died. I'm not going to let your heart get all horrible and
+thumping so that you can't lie down, and your feet and hands swollen and
+white and horrible. And I'm not going to have you shut up in an asylum."
+
+"It's good of you to bother," he said humbly, "but I can see it's no
+good. You can't stop it. I can't myself. You'd get fed up. You'll get
+fed up with me as it is before we get to Sydney. You'll be jolly glad to
+get rid of me and be off with the uncle into the backblocks. I insulted
+and sickened and shamed Violet till she threw me over. And she loved me.
+I know very well she did."
+
+"I won't let you be rude to me, Louis. I'm not quite like Violet,
+perhaps. If people are rude to me I don't get hurt. I just give them a
+good shaking and forget it. Besides, I couldn't get cross with anyone
+for being ill, could I? And I'm going to make you get better before we
+get to Sydney."
+
+He shook his head hopelessly.
+
+"I mean it. I am going to keep worrying you about it till you stop it
+dead. I'll make it seem a dreadful nuisance to you."
+
+"It may work," he said slowly, impressed by her certainty. "So long as
+we're on the ship. If you can keep me from the Ole Fred gang. But it'll
+be all up when we get to Sydney and you leave me."
+
+"Well then, I'll stay in Sydney," she said, making up her mind casually.
+"I'll tell uncle I don't want to go and live with him. I'll find some
+way of staying with you."
+
+"I say, do you mean it?" he cried. "After my rudeness?"
+
+"Of course I mean it. It will be fun! I love a fight!"
+
+"And you mean that you really care about me?"
+
+"Of course I care! I believe I'll die if you don't get better," she said
+eagerly.
+
+He fumbled in his pockets, lit several matches and put something in her
+hand.
+
+"Here it is, look. Thirteen pounds, eight and fivepence."
+
+"What's that for?"
+
+"It's all my money. If I have any I'll be magnetized towards the bar. If
+I haven't, it's much safer. And look here, Marcella, if I come and knock
+you down with a sledgehammer, don't let me have that money, will you?"
+
+"I won't," she said promptly.
+
+She was thrilled, exhilarated, as they went below after shaking hands
+solemnly. She was Siegfried, and the dragon had a pock-marked face, and
+each foot had three claws missing. She thought, as she looked through
+dream-misted eyes, that the dragon was a very long one, with many legs
+and many heads. But she had not the faintest doubt that, in the end, he
+would fall to her trusty sword. And she told Louis so at the door of his
+cabin as she said good night to him.
+
+Then she turned back to Number 15. She had looked about the deck for
+Jimmy, but guessing that he had fallen asleep in his own bunk, pushed
+open the door softly. She was determined that he should not sleep in
+there with Ole Fred, who was celebrating a great win at poker.
+
+Louis stood at his own door.
+
+"What are you going in there for?" he asked.
+
+"I'm fetching poor little Jimmy. He's terrified of Ole Fred. He calls
+him the Beast. I think it's disgusting that he and the red-haired man
+sleep in here with a little boy."
+
+He nodded and smiled at her, but Jimmy was not in the cabin at all. As
+she came out Ole Fred came along the alley-way. He leered at her but did
+not speak. She hurried into her own cabin, shut the door and pushed the
+bolt along instinctively. As she switched on the light she saw a very
+small amount of exceedingly dirty water in her basin, and Jimmy's neat
+pile of tiny clothes folded on the floor. He was fast asleep in the
+lower bunk.
+
+She started to undress in a golden glow of romance, and realized that,
+as her clothes came off, her armour was going to stay on, waking and
+sleeping, visible only to herself. Then she thought of a small, trivial
+thing. She tapped on the partition.
+
+"Are you hungry?" she called quietly.
+
+"Frightfully."
+
+"Go and talk to Knollys. He's very nice. He'll find something for you."
+
+"N-no. I c-can't," he stammered, frightened immediately.
+
+"Then I shall," she said, and, slipping on her dressing-gown, went along
+to the saloon. By luck she found Knollys there and he produced bread and
+cheese and ship's biscuit from the steward's pantry.
+
+"I imagine you are hungry, miss," he said respectfully when she asked
+him to be sure to give her a lot.
+
+"No, I'm not. It's Mr. Farne in Number 8. He hasn't had a meal since he
+came aboard."
+
+"Sea-sick?" he said sympathetically.
+
+"Well--" she began, and realizing that she could not explain, nodded.
+
+"He's better now, anyhow."
+
+"I'll make him some tea if you like, miss," went on Knollys. She waited
+until he had made it, and ten minutes later she tapped on Louis's door,
+took the tray in, laid it on his bunk and came out.
+
+"I won't stay to keep you company. When I'm very hungry I like to
+gobble, but I don't like anyone to watch me," she said.
+
+As she came out Ole Fred opened the door of Number 15 and stood watching
+her until her door closed. Then he hurried on deck.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+For the next few days Marcella and Louis were inseparable. They were up
+very early each morning and did the usual march--seven times round the
+deck before breakfast. Afterwards she went up on the fo'c'sle and waited
+for him; for the rest of the day there was nothing to do but talk and
+read, and there was only a very limited library. Sometimes Louis talked
+of medicine; he told her things that had happened, that he had seen at
+the hospital; he explained cases to her, quoted lectures, and she, with
+all a layman's rather morbid interest, was fascinated. He, with the aura
+of travel, of learning, of experience in the ways of men, began to play
+Othello to her Desdemona. Feeling at his ease with her, and getting
+strength every day from the fact that yet another day had gone by
+without a victory to his enemy, he lost his shyness; she began to feel
+very humble as he talked largely, and her passion for understanding,
+enlightenment, that had led her to read books she could not understand,
+to talk to everyone and even to talk to herself, now enveloped him. She
+opened her mouth to be fed from his stores. Sometimes he would talk of
+London, a marvellous fairyland to her; tell her of "rags" in which he
+had played the leading part; of things he had done when he was in Rio
+for three months--Rio! the very name enthralled her! It smacked of
+buccaneers and Francis Drake--of his life in New Zealand two years ago,
+when, snatching himself from the outcasts of Christchurch and Auckland
+he had flung himself valiantly into the prohibition district of the King
+Country and lived with the Maoris for six months in the hope of finding
+the tribal cure for cancer; of the time when, on a girl-chase, he had
+toured with a theatrical company for a few months while his father
+thought he was at the hospital working. Her sponge-like eagerness for
+all the Romance, the Adventure he could give her was insidious in its
+effect on him; she was flattered that he, with all his cleverness, his
+"grown-up-ness" that went so queerly with his babyishness, should have
+so thrown himself on her mercy; to her nineteen years it seemed a
+wonderful and beautiful thing that a man of twenty-seven should find in
+her an anchor. Of the three men she had known before, her father had
+been, even in his weakness, her tyrant; Wullie had been her playmate all
+her life; the doctor, all alone and friendless in a small, remote
+village, had found in her an intelligent listener, and had talked quite
+impersonally to her, as a safety-valve for his own loneliness. To them
+all she had been just a girl in certain circumstances; her circumstances
+and not herself had really been the thing that impressed them; she was
+just someone who happened to be there. But to Louis she was obviously a
+very tangible, defined person. She could not forget the wonder of that.
+
+And Louis, flattered by her admiration, her wonderment, fell into a very
+human sort of weakness; he tried to make himself even more interesting;
+with the same quite amiable weakness that makes the witness of a street
+accident spill more blood, bear more pain in the telling than the victim
+could possibly have done, he began to lie to her. She was so easy to lie
+to. He scarcely realized, at first, that he was lying; a description of
+an operation he had witnessed, as a student, with Sir Horsley Winans
+playing the chief part, had won her horrified, shivering admiration; ten
+minutes later he was describing how he himself had done trephining
+(which he was careful to assure her was the most difficult operation
+possible) on an injured dock labourer; how the patient had wakened from
+the anesthetic in the middle of it; how Louis had immediately dropped
+his instruments and gone on administering the anesthetic because the
+anesthetist was actually flirting with a nurse who was Louis's pet
+annoyance in the wards; how the electric light had failed at the crucial
+moment; how only Louis's iron nerve had prevented tragedy and horror.
+
+"You may think, seeing me such a bundle of nerves as I am now, that I
+couldn't have done it," he said. "But when I'm doing the doctor job I'm
+a different being; I lose myself. I just gave him another whiff of
+A.C.E., called to the nurses to fetch candles and got on with it. He's
+walking about London to-day--as right as nine-pence."
+
+She knew nothing about hospitals, had never seen one in her life; he
+called most things by their bewildering technical names and she listened
+respectfully as a layman will always listen to technicalities. She did
+not know that the whole thing was a fabrication; in spite of his warning
+about his lying she had naturally thought that, if he should lie to her
+at all it would be about drinking and not about everyday affairs. And
+he, carried away by his imagination and his desire to impress her,
+scarcely realized what he was doing.
+
+Marcella was very bad for him; her courteous belief in him encouraged
+him to deceive her; he thought she was rather silly; any other girl
+would have chaffed him, have capped his tales by others, obviously
+"tall" as Violet had done until he had sickened her entirely; but to
+Marcella's Keltic imagination there was nothing incredible in his gory,
+gorgeous exploits; was not she, herself, the daughter of a faraway
+spaewife who could slide down moonbeams and ride on the breasts of
+snowflakes? And was not she herself a fighter of windmills? To her
+Romance could not come in too brightly-coloured garb, and so her Romance
+wove a net about him. Sometimes it flattered: sometimes it amused:
+sometimes it gave a sense of kinship that made him think that, unless
+she were a liar she would never have so sympathized with him. He was
+unable to trace the fine distinction in veracity between describing a
+perfectly fictitious operation performed by oneself, and in recounting
+the messages given by the screaming gulls, the whining winds on
+Lashnagar.
+
+On one or two things she was certainly caught up sharp. His taste in
+books showed a width of divergence between them that nothing could ever
+bridge; seeing her with "Fruit Gathering" which the schoolmaster had
+lent to her, he asked what it was.
+
+"It's by Tagore," she ventured.
+
+"Tagore? Never heard of him," he said dismissively.
+
+In the fly-leaf of the book was a beautiful portrait of Tagore. She
+showed it to him, remarking that he was the Bengali poet.
+
+"Oh, a nigger!" he cried contemptuously, pushing the book on one side.
+She frowned at him and shyly suggested that Christ, in that case, shared
+Tagore's disadvantage. He laughed loudly. Then she opened the book at
+random. She had been impressed with something before going to bed the
+night before.
+
+"Listen to this, Louis. I thought I'd like to read it to you," she
+said, and read, "'Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers, but to
+be fearless in facing them. And this--listen, 'Let me not look for
+allies in life's fight, but to my own strength'; and here's the best bit
+of all, 'Grant me that I may not be a coward, feeling your mercy in my
+success alone; but let me find the grasp of your hand in my failure.' I
+wish so much I could have found that before father died and read it to
+him."
+
+"Oh--poetry," he said contemptuously; "a lot of high falutin'
+nonsense--and by a nigger too! What's that someone said? 'Intoxicated
+with the exuberance of his own verbosity.' That's a good description of
+a poet."
+
+Another time she spoke of St. Brigid, the Bride of Christ.
+
+"Who's she?" he asked contemptuously.
+
+"The Irish saint." He interrupted with a long tirade against Home
+Rule which proved, to his satisfaction, that St. Brigid was also
+"high-falutin' nonsense." A pamphlet of Shaw's she found in the saloon
+he told her not, on any account, to read.
+
+"A damned Socialist--a vegetarian--a faddist," he said excitedly, and
+she led the conversation away from books, though he brought it back
+several times to explain to her the jokes in "Punch" which he said would
+have to be put into her head with a hammer and chisel, since she was a
+Scot.
+
+But in spite of puzzlement and divergences she was intensely happy.
+After the solitude of Lashnagar every day was full of thrilled interest
+to her. The many people, the changes of temperature as the boat went
+south, the shoals of porpoises tumbling in the blue water; the strange
+foods, the passing ships were all amazements to her and the fact that
+her thoughts had, for the first time, found a tangible resting-place
+like homing pigeons alighting at their cot, together with her absorption
+in Louis, all gave her a sense of security.
+
+Louis, on the other hand, though he was trying hard to keep content,
+realized that the very fact he had to try meant a fight was coming. And
+his inflated sense of being a very fine fellow indeed in her eyes made
+it impossible for him to be honest as he had been at first, and tell her
+that he had caught sight of his enemy seeing to the edge of his sword,
+the priming of his pistols. He could not ask her for help now--he could
+not be less than a hero now! He would fight it out alone. Both of them
+had yet to realize that life is not a static condition: both of them had
+to realize that lives are interdependent.
+
+At Gibraltar happened something that was to have far-reaching effects.
+She was watching the frowning Rock; Louis was pointing out the little
+threatening barbettes as they drew inshore slowly. Out in the
+stream--very much out--lay a Norddeutscher Lloyd ship at anchor.
+
+"Every inch of this water is mined," he told her. "A touch from switches
+up on the Rock would blow the whole lot of us to Kingdom Come. The bally
+old German out there knows that."
+
+Marcella knew nothing of world politics. He explained.
+
+"England is mistress of the seas," he orated proudly. "The empire
+on which the sun never sets! In a few years' time every foreign
+ship--especially Germans--will be swept off the seas and Britannia will
+literally rule the waves."
+
+"She looks such a nice, comfortable, clean old ship," began Marcella,
+feeling very sorry for her.
+
+"Clean?" he cried. "A German clean? Filthy cockroachy holes, their ships
+are! Why, there's only one race on earth dirtier than the Germans and
+that's the Scots."
+
+Then he stopped dead and giggled nervously as he realized what he had
+said. Her eyes were blazing, her lips quivering; it was impossible for
+her to speak for a moment, her breath was coming in such sharp pants.
+For a moment she looked just like Andrew Lashcairn, but before she had
+time to launch her indignation he was stammering and apologizing and
+looking so sorry that she decided to bury the hatchet. And he went on
+breathlessly, trying to reinstate himself.
+
+"You know, I hate the Germans. I happen to know a lot about them and the
+menace they are to Eng--Britain," he said in a low, confidential voice.
+He had, as a matter of fact, recently read in proof some spy-revelations
+his father's firm was publishing. He was well primed. He went on talking
+rapidly, showing her Germany as an ogre. She listened amazed; she
+thought all that sort of thing had died out years ago, but, thinking of
+her own indignant championing of Scotland, decided that she was just as
+illogical as Louis.
+
+"However do you know all this?" she asked at last.
+
+"Well--as a matter of fact--I did a bit of secret service work once. It
+was one time when the Pater spewed me out of home."
+
+That day he was secretive and bewildering: once he took a little bundle
+of crackling papers from his pocket and put them away again furtively,
+watching her as he did so. She was impressed, but puzzled.
+
+But all the time, in spite of chaffing insults and even friendly
+overtures he kept away from Ole Fred's gang and stayed almost
+desperately at Marcella's side. They became the subject of gossip;
+spiteful gossip on the part of the girls, shocked gossip on the side of
+the married women, who, with the exception of Mrs. Hetherington, left
+her severely alone.
+
+Between Marcella and Mrs. Hetherington a queer friendship had sprung up;
+her quickness, her absolute lack of continuity, her littleness and her
+transparently minx-like qualities seemed so pathetic that Marcella took
+her under her wing. She never came out of her cabin for breakfast; the
+stewardess, with her nose very high in the air and a non-committal
+voice, had asked Marcella to go to Mrs. Hetherington's cabin the morning
+after Gibraltar. She found the little lady propped up in her bunk, her
+black hair all over the pillow, her small face rising from a foam of
+pink ribbons and laces that seemed unreal to the girl.
+
+"Oh, my dear, how sweet of you to come to me! I am terribly
+ill--terribly ill," she said faintly.
+
+"I am so sorry. Will I get the doctor?"
+
+"Oh dear no. I am often like this! I suffer terribly, my dear, terribly.
+My poor, poor head."
+
+Marcella had bought a bottle of eau-de-Cologne at Gibraltar when the
+Spanish merchants came aboard; she fetched it and bathed Mrs.
+Hetherington's aching head. All the time she was staring at her
+fascinating nightgown. It was the first dainty garment she had seen
+close to since her mother's death.
+
+"That is so nice, dear," she murmured. Marcella blushed. She was not
+used to being called "dear" and liked it immensely.
+
+"Would you brush my silly mop of hair and then pass me my cap, dear? Oh
+this hair is a bother! I've often thought I'd have it cut off like a
+convict."
+
+"I think it is wonderful hair," Marcella told her, brushing it tenderly,
+and plaiting it back before she arranged it under a ridiculous boudoir
+cap of ribbon and lace.
+
+"I can't tell you how I suffered during the night, dear," said Mrs.
+Hetherington plaintively. "(Just pass me the hand mirror, will you?) I
+can't think why I was so foolish as to travel steerage. Those three
+emigrant girls in this cabin--my dear, they are absolutely _coarse_! You
+should see their underclothes! Look, Marcella--I'm going to call you
+Marcella, you are so sweet. Look at that nightgown on the top bunk.
+_Pink flannelette_! And I hate to share my cabin with them! They've gone
+on deck now for the day. I told them I simply must be alone."
+
+"Aren't you going to have any breakfast?" asked Marcella. "I'll make you
+some tea if you like." She and Louis had bought a teapot at Gibraltar,
+solemnly paying half each and sharing the responsibility for the
+sacrifice of the other one.
+
+"No, I don't think I could drink tea. What do you think I could have?
+You know, my dear, it was champagne that upset me like this! Mistah
+Petahs and I had a small bottle last night and it brought everything
+back."
+
+She began to wipe a plaintive eye on her small handkerchief.
+
+"The day I married my dear George--the father of my darlings--we had
+champagne. It always brings it all back to me."
+
+"But--tea makes headaches better."
+
+"Not mine." Mrs. Hetherington knitted her white brows and looked
+immensely interested.
+
+"I think if you were to see dear Mistah Petahs and ask him to come along
+the alley-way and speak to me. He is so gentle, so sympathetic, he might
+suggest something, dear."
+
+"Um," said Marcella, thinking of Jimmy. But she fetched Mistah Petahs
+who came with voluble and pleased sympathy.
+
+He stood at the door of the cabin smiling fatuously. Mrs. Hetherington
+gave a little horrified shriek as she saw the tip of his toe over the
+threshold.
+
+"No, no, naughty boy! You mustn't come in here! I'm shocked."
+
+"Are you ill?" he asked in a deeply pained voice.
+
+"My poor, poor head, Mistah Petahs! That champagne last night brought
+everything back--dear George and all our happiness."
+
+"Oh, I say," murmured Mr. Peters.
+
+"I feel so ill, so terribly ill. What could I have? If this head doesn't
+get better I shall jump overboard, really I shall. And then the fishes
+will eat me!"
+
+Mr. Peters contemplated the prospect hopefully.
+
+"And--I keep thinking of my darlings," she whispered, reduced to tears.
+
+"What you want, little lady, is a hair of the dog that bit you," said
+Mr. Peters judicially. She gave a gentle little scream.
+
+"Oh you sound so fierce, Mistah Petahs! Which dog? When?" she asked
+guilelessly.
+
+"I'll get it--you lie back, little lady, and rest your pretty head."
+
+She lay back, with swimming eyes.
+
+He went half a step along the alley-way.
+
+"Mistah Petahs," she called faintly.
+
+He came back, assiduous.
+
+"On ice," she murmured. He nodded and went.
+
+"So kind--so sympathetic," murmured Mrs. Hetherington with closed eyes.
+
+Marcella, who had stood frowning and puzzled, was now pressed into the
+service.
+
+"I think, dear, when Mistah Petahs comes back I could manage a little
+bread and butter--only the butter is so nasty."
+
+"Would you like jam?" said Marcella helpfully, liking jam herself.
+
+The thought of jam made Mrs. Hetherington feel faint.
+
+"No, I'll have bread and butter. Get me two slices, dear--thin. And--ask
+Knollys if he could let you have some cayenne pepper. Bread and butter
+sprinkled with cayenne always does me good when my head has one of its
+naughty fits."
+
+Twenty minutes later she was sitting up with sparkling eyes eating
+devilled bread and butter and drinking champagne daintily while Mr.
+Peters sat beaming and bashful and inexpressibly silly on a camp-stool
+in the alley-way, and the bedroom steward wondered what on earth he
+would do when the officers came along for cabin inspection.
+
+The night before they touched at Naples Marcella and Louis arranged what
+she called a "ploy." They would go ashore together and spend the day at
+Pompeii. He had been there before, but he remembered little of it
+because he had been with a party who had hired a car, taken a luncheon
+basket and several bottles of whisky and left him asleep in the car
+while they explored the dead towns.
+
+"It seems an insult to the past--going there and getting drunk on their
+tombs," he said musingly. "But you and I will have a great day. In a
+Roman town, Marcella--there's something very Roman about you--you're
+like the mother of the Gracchi. I happen to know all about the mother of
+the Gracchi because it came in my Latin translation at Matric, and I
+had such a devil of a job with it that I never forgot it. That's the
+only bit of Roman history that's stuck to me, just as 'Julius Caesar' is
+the only bit of Shakespeare I know because we did scenes from it for a
+school concert once."
+
+During the afternoon the young schoolmaster came along with "The Last
+Days of Pompeii" in his hands.
+
+"He's going to suggest coming with us to-morrow," said Louis, who
+laughed at him every time he saw him. "And he's going to read us bits of
+local colour. I can see it glinting in his eye. Let's look very busy."
+
+"What can we do?" asked Marcella with a giggle. He initiated her into
+the mysteries of "Noughts and Crosses" and they sat with heads bent low
+over the paper as the schoolmaster came along.
+
+"I have been tracing the course of the fugitives in Lytton's immortal
+work," he began with a cough. "It would greatly add to the interest of
+visitors to Pompeii if they could follow it to-morrow, so I am giving a
+little lecture on it in the saloon to anyone who cares--"
+
+"Thanks," said Louis shortly. With a sigh the schoolmaster passed on,
+and, sitting down with his back against the capstan, read studiously.
+
+"Don't let's go with him if he asks us," whispered Marcella. "Let's be
+alone."
+
+"Of course--he's a bore," whispered Louis. "I wouldn't lose this day at
+Pompeii for a shipload of footling schoolmasters."
+
+Very early next morning he wakened her by tapping on her cabin door. She
+had heard him tossing about in the night and was not surprised that he
+looked tired and rather haggard. But she forgot to ask him what was the
+matter as Naples burst upon her the moment she put her head above the
+companion-way where he was waiting for her.
+
+"Oh--look at it," she gasped.
+
+"Yes, isn't it?" he said, waving his arm as if he were responsible for
+Naples. "Look at the jolly old bonfire."
+
+All round, in the brilliant blue waters of the Bay, ships lay as if
+asleep; a few little tugs fussed nervously, a few little boats laden
+brilliantly with fruit and vegetables glided along as though they were
+content to reach somewhere quite near by to-morrow or the day after.
+There was a cloud over the grey town at the foot of Vesuvius; it looked
+like winding sheets about the dead; it reminded Marcella insensibly of
+Lashnagar as she saw the mist and smoke wraiths mingle grey and white,
+rising from fissures, creeping along gullies until they formed a wreath
+at the crest of the volcano through which a thin needle of yellower
+smoke was rising straight as a pinnacle through the windless air.
+
+"Does it ever do things now?" she asked rather breathlessly.
+
+"Oh yes. Listen!" She heard faint reports like distant small guns being
+fired. "With any luck it'll give us a bit of a Crystal Palace Bank
+Holiday exploit to-night--we sail at midnight, you know. It will be
+rather gorgeous if the old bonfire will oblige. Red fires, white and
+silver moonlight--why Naples is making me get poetical," he added,
+stopping short.
+
+People began to come on deck: the schoolmaster walked along, his finger
+in between two pages of a Baedeker in which he was going to count off
+the items of interest he encountered.
+
+"Good morning, Miss Lashcairn!" he said with a smile. "See Naples and
+die!"
+
+"Oh no--it's too beautiful!" she said quickly. Louis edged her along the
+deck as a little clatter of church bells pealed from the many spires
+rising above the tall brown houses of the town. A motor-launch
+chuff-chuffed out from the quay, flying the yellow flag.
+
+"Port doctor," he informed her. "If he gives us a clean bill we'll be
+ashore the minute breakfast's over. And I say, Marcella, let me
+_implore_ you not to have Jimmy or schoolmasters in attendance. This is
+_my_ show."
+
+She smiled at him and turned to watch three boys scrambling up the
+ladder after the port doctor, carrying great baskets of grapes and
+flowers and oranges.
+
+"I'm going to buy you some grapes--those whopping big black ones. It
+seems the obvious thing to do in Naples, doesn't it? Oh, by the way, I
+must pay a visit to the Bank of Scotland. You'd better give me five
+pounds."
+
+"You're very extravagant," she laughed.
+
+"Never mind. Any other trip I've been broke by this time, and in a devil
+of a mess as well. Lord knows what these bally dagoes will charge us for
+a car out to Pompeii. They're all on the make. But I don't care if they
+charge thirteen pounds--"
+
+"Eight and fivepence," she added, laughing at him and running below
+to unlock her trunk and bring him the money without a glimmer of
+apprehension.
+
+She put the five pounds into his hand in the alley-way. A minute later
+he was back with an enormous bunch of grapes lying amongst their green
+leaves.
+
+"Lock your door when you come on deck, and shut your porthole," he told
+her. "We're coaling, and coal dust gets everywhere--in your eyes, your
+finger-nails, your food and your bed if you don't hermetically seal them
+all. It's a good place to be away from, a coaling ship."
+
+He darted away before she could mention the grapes. She helped Jimmy
+dress, and then, turning him out, examined her three white frocks with
+minute care to see in which she should do honour to Pompeii. Often, in
+the past, she had dressed a part, but always her personality had been
+lost in the part she was playing. Now she consciously dressed as
+Marcella; it was probably the first time in her life she had looked
+interestedly in a mirror; comparing herself with Mrs. Hetherington, she
+felt vaguely dissatisfied: she wished she were much nicer. Noticing the
+vine leaves where she had twined them round the rail of her bunk, she
+broke off two or three and tucked them in her dress at the waist.
+Stepping back, she surveyed the effect, decided that it was as good as
+could be managed, and tapped at the partition. She had heard Louis
+moving about some time before.
+
+There was no answer, and she decided that he must have gone on deck.
+
+It was crowded with passengers waiting for the little boats to take them
+ashore; Italians went here and there selling fruit, postcards and
+jewellery straight from Birmingham; two flat coal lighters were drawing
+ponderously alongside. She could not see Louis.
+
+From end to end she searched the ship, even going on to the upper deck,
+which to-day was not sacred to the upper-class passengers. But he was
+nowhere to be seen. A lump came into her throat, her knees felt a little
+shaky.
+
+Going below again she saw Knollys looking about eagerly.
+
+"Oh, there you are, miss. Mr. Fame desired me to give you this. He was
+considerably hurried."
+
+She took it with a word of thanks--a little note, folded three
+cornerwise.
+
+"I'm more sorry than I can say," she read. "The port doctor was an old
+St. Crispin's man. He noticed me on deck and spoke. He and I were great
+pals at the hospital, and he asked me to go ashore with him. He
+remembered how keen I was on gynecology, and has a queer case he'd like
+me to look at. It's his wife as a matter of fact. I made all sorts of
+excuses, but he seemed so hurt I had to give way. I know this will
+disappoint you horribly, but it seems unavoidable. I'll cut away as soon
+as I can, and we'll still go to Pompeii. After all, I hear we don't sail
+till one o'clock, so there'll be time--we'll come back in the moonlight.
+Give my love to Jimmy and the schoolmaster.--L.F."
+
+To her amazement she felt tears begin to prick her eyelids. She blinked
+fiercely.
+
+"Well, of all the babies! Did it cry because it was wanting to go out,
+then?" she cried indignantly, and stood watching the coal bunkers being
+opened. But she could not see much; she was thinking of Louis.
+
+"You'll get filthy here!" said the third officer behind her, "and most
+uncomfortable. I should advise you to go ashore."
+
+"I can't. I'm waiting for someone," she explained.
+
+"Then I'd go up on the boat deck. You've no idea how abominable it gets
+down here. Coaling should be prohibited by Act of Parliament."
+
+"Which is the boat-deck?" she asked, glad that her voice was sensible
+again. He pointed, and she turned away.
+
+The ship was deserted, practically; everyone had gone ashore. She went
+disconsolately towards the stairway. On the bottom step sat Jimmy
+sobbing dismally.
+
+"There they are!" he said, rubbing his eyes with one hand and pointing
+to a little boat out on the blue water. "I did so want to go with them."
+
+Mrs. Hetherington in a white frock and blue sash was waving her hand
+gaily from the little boat. Marcella suddenly felt indignant with her,
+and took Jimmy's tear-stained hand.
+
+"There they are!" she said, smiling. "And here are we! We're both in the
+same boat, old man. Come down to my little house. I've something nice
+there."
+
+She broke off a big bunch of grapes for him and, taking pencils, books
+and writing-paper, went back on deck. Two Italians were just going off
+with a stock of postcards. She bought a dozen for Jimmy, and a little
+basket of strawberries.
+
+"Now you're going to be a big man, Jimmy. We're going right up on the
+roof of the ship, and you're having a chair all to yourself so that you
+can write postcards to Gran."
+
+His face cleared immediately, though as they got settled in the shadow
+of one of the lifeboats and he saw Mrs. Hetherington's white figure
+walking along the quay he gave a little sigh. She addressed his
+postcards as far as his remembered stock of addresses would go. Several
+Aunties who lived "along Gran's street and along the next and over the
+field" had to be left out. As soon as postcard writing palled a sailor
+came along providentially, took him to see the hen coops, and let him
+find two eggs that had been laid.
+
+Marcella wrote long letters home; only to Wullie did she mention Louis,
+and even to him she said very little.
+
+Noon came, and the boat deck was very hot. The chiming of bells in the
+churches told when the moment of the Elevation came and passed; the
+little reports sounded from the old mountain: she thought they sounded
+like guns that had been fired a thousand years ago. Jimmy said he didn't
+feel well, and went to sleep after a while; an Italian boy with black,
+hyacinthine curls and swimming black eyes spied her white frock from his
+little boat out in the bay: tying up to the accommodation ladder, he
+stood singing a passionate song to the twanging of a guitar. She
+wondered whether this were a personal tribute or a way of earning money.
+The cap he held out for a coin showed it was the one; his eloquent eyes
+and picturesque gestures as he begged her little withering bunch of vine
+leaves showed it was the other. She tossed them to him carelessly, and
+he bowed and kissed them gracefully.
+
+At last the family parties began to come on board, with hot, tired
+mothers, cross children and disillusioned fathers; then came the
+emigrant girls, their hats covered in bright flowers. They were hustled
+below by the third officer, who was superintending the sluicing of the
+dusty, black decks. As Marcella went slowly below with Jimmy she heard
+him declaring that coaling was the bane of his existence, as he pointed
+out to the ship's doctor marks of black hands deliberately printed high
+up on the shining white paint.
+
+When she had finished her letters Marcella sat for a while perfectly
+still while Jimmy slept and the fowls in the coops crooned. Down below
+in the bunkers the coal went thudding faintly, heard up on the boat deck
+more as vibrations than sounds, mingling with the tinkling of guitars,
+the lazy splash of oars; somewhere a man with a voice like a rook was
+cawing:
+
+"A mother was chay-sing her boy round the room,
+She was chay-sing her boy round the room"
+
+over and over again. Somewhere at the end of a ventilator shaft a man
+was polishing boots; he was swearing monotonously, between each rub of
+his brush, using a list of twelve words beginning with "blast" uttered
+very softly and increasing in volume of sound and violence of meaning at
+the twelfth word, when he would start pianissimo again. Marcella's eyes
+closed; she was not asleep, she was thinking very vividly of Louis, but
+all the murmur of sounds about her intruded on her consciousness, making
+clear thought impossible. The peculiar languor of shipboard life seized
+upon her mind and her body: when she went below both were partly
+anaesthetized; her feet scarcely felt the boards of the deck; her
+fingers were scarcely conscious of the letters and books she held. Her
+eyes and her mind took in the returning passengers dully.
+
+"You look half asleep, kid," said Diddy with sparkling eyes. "We didn't
+half have a day of it! Young Bill and Mr. Winkle both got shore leaf,
+and Mr. Winkle knew a man who keeps a little cafe. He was once chef
+where Mr. Winkle was assistant chef in an hotel. My, we didn't half have
+a tuck in! Oysters and funny things in French, and chicken done up with
+jam, and ices. We went to Pompey in the afternoon, but I couldn't move,
+I was that stuffed up! My, it was a day and a half! Where did you get
+to?"
+
+"Oh, just about with Jimmy."
+
+"Where's your young chap?" asked Diddy in surprise.
+
+Marcella stared at her and flushed. The schoolmaster came up to her and
+stood silent beside her. He was very full of Naples. His shoes were
+dustless, though everyone else was covered in the fine, impalpable
+powdery dust of Naples. His high collar was spotless, his coat
+incredibly black. He looked irresistibly as if he had been lay-reading.
+
+"I was hoping that I might have had the pleasure of your company during
+my journeyings to-day, Miss Lashcairn," he began after a little cough.
+"But I was--er--afraid to intrude."
+
+"I stayed on board with Jimmy," she explained. "Did you have a good
+time?"
+
+"One cannot have a good time in the tomb of past splendours," he said
+slowly. "Imperial Cesar dead and turned to clay stopping a hole to keep
+the wind away is indeed a tragedy to a sensitive mind. But to see
+Imperial Pompeii desecrated by ginger-beer bottles, cigarette packets
+and spent matches--it was more than tragic. It was--it was--but I pause
+for a word! All the time I was murmuring sadly to myself '_Sic transit
+gloria mundi_.'"
+
+"I'm quite glad I didn't go if it was so bad as that," she said.
+
+"I had been at great, very great, trouble to trace the path of the
+fugitives in Lytton's immortal work. But I have an idea that at certain
+points Lytton was rather nebulous. I met your young friend and asked him
+what he thought. He only laughed, however. He is fond of laughing."
+
+Marcella's dullness disappeared; the clouds from her mind packed like
+wolves and vanished. Her heart suddenly stood still.
+
+"He was at Pompeii?" she whispered.
+
+"Only for a little time this morning. Then he and his party went away
+again in their car."
+
+"He was with the doctor," said Marcella, hating to talk about him, but
+unable not to.
+
+"Not when I saw him. He was with those exceedingly noisy fellows--the
+man who is severely pitted with small-pox and the man with the missing
+fingers."
+
+"Oh--"
+
+She turned away and answered him at random after that. Even then she did
+not see that Louis had deliberately lied to her. She was hurt that he
+could have gone to Pompeii without her: she was indignant that he had
+gone with her abomination, the pock-marked man. But perhaps it was only
+an accident! She wondered, with sudden misgiving, if he could have been
+back on the boat for her and missed her. But that his desertion was
+intentional she could not imagine.
+
+Lights began to twinkle from the houses, to flare from the streets, to
+dance from the boats. The sky of ultramarine became indigo with a green
+and mauve lightening to the west. Over Vesuvius was a column of white
+smoke that now turned rosy, now coppery from the fires beneath. Little
+boat loads of chattering people who seemed ghosts kept tumbling up the
+accommodation ladder out of the grey water; they seemed to come
+soundlessly as though they were produced by a conjuror's hand, for no
+one could hear what they said: only their gestures, their laughing,
+excited faces were visible. A little cold hand squeezed Marcella's, and
+she answered Jimmy's eager questions about his father thoughtlessly,
+while a steamer coming into port hooted shrilly and desolately beyond
+the bar. The little boats glided up and down, in and out of the shadows
+of big ships with double lights--lights on board that were determinate
+and steady, reflections of lights that cracked and shivered and went in
+long, shimmering ribbons through the water.
+
+"Most of the passengers are aboard now," volunteered the schoolmaster.
+
+"Are they?" she said, her heart sinking. It came to her that he had
+gone, that she would never see him again. And in that moment she knew
+just how much she wanted to see him: and in that moment she saw him.
+
+A boatload of men was zigzagging towards the Oriana with snatches of
+loud song, laughter and occasional shouts. It was impossible to
+distinguish faces until the boat came within range of the vessel's arc
+lamps. And their dead white glare shone on Louis's face--and on his face
+alone, as far as Marcella was concerned. He was grinning vacantly: he
+looked very white. As he swayed up the ladder she saw that his clothes
+were covered in dust. Catching sight of her the minute he reached the
+deck, he lurched towards her. She shrank away a little, frightened of
+the glazed stare of his eyes, his loose, slobbering mouth. She knew that
+he was drunk, but he was not drunk as her father had been. Wild thoughts
+flickered on the curtain of her mind: "drunk as a lord" was one of them.
+"That's how father used to be," and a queer sort of pride in him
+followed. After all, there was something in being a lord, even in
+drunkenness! But this foolish, grinning, damp-mouthed thing before her,
+who kept making ineffectual attempts to lift his hand to his head and
+take off his hat, who was coming closer towards her with the inadequate
+movements she had once seen made by a duck when its leg had been
+broken!--
+
+"H'lo, ole girl!" he said, standing before her at last. "Parlez-vous
+Franshay? Ah, oui, oui! Give--kith, ole girl!"
+
+"You'd better go below, Miss Lashcairn," said the schoolmaster in a low
+voice. "It's no use talking to an intoxicated man."
+
+She knew he was speaking, but she felt mesmerized by Louis, and shook
+her head impatiently, never taking her eyes for an instant from the
+boy's dribbling mouth.
+
+"Give's--kith--kith--kisssh," he said solemnly after a great effort,
+managing to close his mouth. "Baisez-moi--ole girl! Ah, oui, oui! Ole
+girl--I shay, ole girl--voulez-vous coucher avec moi?"
+
+He caught her arm and held it tight, grinning into her face. She stood
+with set face, trembling.
+
+"What does he mean?" she asked the schoolmaster, who was looking
+distressed.
+
+"He is speaking French--I--don't quite"--he coughed nervously--"I don't
+quite understand him--it isn't classical French. But I should go below.
+He will be better to-morrow."
+
+Louis turned to him solemnly, his jaws working.
+
+"G-g-go to--school!" he cried, and giggled helplessly. "You
+w-w-white-livered k-k-kidpuncher! Are you after her yourself? G-god
+damn you, you're always sniffing about after her."
+
+"I wish you would go below," said the schoolmaster. "Men when
+intoxicated say things unfit for the ears of young ladies. You go away
+and leave him to me, Miss Lashcairn."
+
+"Louis, you trusted me to take care of you," she said in a low voice.
+
+He laughed hysterically until tears ran down his cheeks.
+
+"Thass ri', ole girl! Trus' take care of me! Nashly! Father
+drunkard--father _dead_ drunkard! Nash'ly ta' care poor little Louis."
+
+Ole Fred and the red-haired man had made immediately for the bar,
+but finding it closed had come back to claim Louis. They saw the
+schoolmaster's white face and Louis's passionate gestures; they scented
+a fight, and hoped for it.
+
+"Wan' 'ny 'elp, mate?" cried Ole Fred, putting up his fists.
+
+Marcella did not see them. She saw her father standing by his bed,
+holding on to the post, praying for courage. Something in her brain gave
+a little snap like a fiddle string breaking, and, taking Louis by both
+shoulders, she shook him violently. His head wobbled about loosely. He
+was terrified, and so were the others. Ole Fred had seen girls and women
+resort to physical argument: in his world of the East End it was quite
+common, but he was rather surprised to see a "young lady" do it. Nor had
+they ever imagined it possible for such a blaze of anger to scorch
+anyone as shone in her eyes, vibrated in her voice as she loosed him,
+quite breathless, propped him against the rail and said, very quietly:
+
+"The very next time you mention my father I'll put you in the sea."
+
+Louis was trembling and staring at her, his mouth open. The schoolmaster
+was the first to speak.
+
+"I regret this," he began, and stopped, coughing.
+
+"Just you shut the 'ole in yer fice," growled Ole Fred. Then, turning to
+Louis, he became maudlinly soothing. "Look 'ere, mate, no young lady
+likes to hear her father spoke of rough--even if he ain't her father, as
+the saying goes. I do' know what the rah's abaht, but y' know, ole chap,
+no man should make sin--sin--sinuation he can't prove--in black an'
+white." He looked from one to the other with engaging earnestness.
+"Life's--life's--slife's too short to quarrel, hearts are too precious to
+break, so shake hands and kissh and kiss and be frien's, for ole time's
+sake."
+
+He was so overcome by the pathos of his own eloquence that he began to
+sob brokenly, clinging to the red-haired man. "We alwiz bin mates, ain't
+we?" he added, trying to shake hands with him. Fired by his example,
+Louis made a grab at Marcella. He had entirely forgotten his fright, his
+shame of a moment ago.
+
+"Thass ri', Marsh--Marcella. Kith--kith--kisssh an' be fren's! Ah, oui,
+oui, n'est ce pas? Ole Fred--no, no, Ole girl--voulez-vous coucher avec
+moi?"
+
+She looked at him, frowning. The unusual words--she had never heard
+French words before--worried her: she never afterwards was able to hear
+French without an acute sense of discomfort. He was smiling at her with
+open mouth and wet eyes. She came quite close to him: he cringed
+unconsciously, and then lifted his face, expecting her to kiss him.
+Instead, she said in a low voice, close to his ear:
+
+"You asked me to help you, Louis. Do you know the best way to help you?"
+
+"Kith--baisez-moi--ah, oui, oui."
+
+"The best way to help you is to drown you. You're--you're not fit to
+live! Oh, you're a perfect idiot!"
+
+She turned and ran down below. Dimly she heard the schoolmaster say,
+"Very foolish to talk to an intoxicated man"; she heard the same boy
+who had begged her vine leaves singing his passionate love song to the
+tinkling music of his guitar and the lapping water. Then she was below
+deck, making blindly for her cabin.
+
+At the door of Number 15 she was arrested by Jimmy. He was standing in
+the doorway, his head well back, his hands in his trouser pockets.
+
+"Marcella!" he whispered proudly. "Look!"
+
+She made herself conscious of him and looked. On the outer bunk was a
+crumpled mass of clothing that was heaving up and down and snoring
+loudly.
+
+"He's there all right. I got him up when he wanted to be on the floor.
+He pinched my arm fearful. He's very strong, my Daddy is! He didn't
+pinch it on purpose, he couldn't help it."
+
+Pushing back the sleeve of his jersey, he showed her a red mark as a
+soldier might show his scars.
+
+"Now he's fast asleep. Marcella, isn't he making a funny noise?" he
+added with the queerest cross between amusement and puzzlement on his
+small face. She suddenly realized what he was saying.
+
+"Oh, you little brave man," she cried, taking him up in her arms and
+kissing him. He wriggled down quickly, and stood in the doorway again,
+on sentry duty. She forgot to take him with her. She had forgotten
+everything save her instinct to be alone with her misery.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+It was not until the _Oriana_ left Port Said that Louis spoke to
+Marcella again. Three times he wrote to her demanding his money. Three
+times something got beyond and above the pride that told her to send it
+to him and have nothing else to say to him, and she refused definitely
+to give him the money; she asked him to come and talk to her. But he
+entrenched himself behind the Ole Fred gang and speedily helped to make
+it the nuisance of the ship. The germ of self-confidence and courage
+that was entirely missing in his make-up was replaced by bombast under
+the combined influence of whisky and boredom. Some day, perhaps, the
+iniquity of fastening up a small world of people in a ship for six weeks
+with nothing compulsory to do will dawn upon shipping companies, and the
+passengers will be forced to work, for their own salvation. On board
+ship people drift; they drift into flirtation which rapidly becomes
+either love-making or a sex-problem; they drift into drinking or, if
+they have no such native weakness, they become back-biting and bad
+tempered.
+
+Marcella found herself drifting like the rest. A letter to Dr. Angus she
+had begun to write the day after Naples asking him to explain the cause,
+treatment and cure of drunkenness, still awaited completion. She sat
+beside Louis's empty chair, physically too inert from want of strenuous
+exercise, and mentally too troubled to get a grip on anything. Naples
+had shown her that Louis had not come into her life merely as a
+shipboard acquaintance to be forgotten and dropped when they reached
+Sydney, as she would forget and drop Mrs. Hetherington, the schoolmaster
+and Biddy. His talk of the coincidence of his coming by the _Oriana_ at
+all had made a deep dint on her Keltic imagination; his appeal to her
+for help had squared beautifully with her youthful dreams of
+Deliverance; the fact that he was the first young man who had ever
+talked to her probably had more than anything else to do with her
+preoccupation, though she did not realize it.
+
+At Port Said she and Jimmy spent a stifling morning ashore amid the dust
+and smells of the native quarter. Turning a corner in the bazaar
+suddenly they heard Louis's voice joined with the red-haired man's in a
+futile song they sang night and day: it was a song about a man who went
+to mow a meadow; the second verse was about two men; the third about
+three and so on, as long as the singer's voice lasted out. It was the
+red-haired man's boast that he had once kept up to five hundred. As
+Marcella turned the corner she saw them sitting under some palm trees
+outside a little cafe, bottles and glasses before them. Louis, who
+looked dirty and unkempt, was facing her. He broke off and darted
+towards her.
+
+"I wan' my money," he started.
+
+"You're not going to have it--even if you try to get it with a sledge
+hammer, as you said you might," she said, white lipped.
+
+"You--you--you're keeping it for yourself!"
+
+"Don't be such a fool, Louis. You know why I'm keeping it. If only you'd
+stop drinking for a day or two your mind would come clear and you'd talk
+to me."
+
+"Gi' m' my money, I tell you! Thas' why you hooked on to me, at first.
+You knew I was a gentleman! You guessed I'd plenty of money! Thas' what
+you want of me--you know the Pater's a well-known publisher, an' you
+think you'll do a good thing for yourself."
+
+Marcella had a hard fight then; something told her that this was not
+Louis speaking. She remembered that he had told her that drinking was an
+illness. When Mrs. Mactavish had fever she remembered how the people in
+the village had talked of the cruel things she had said to Mr. Mactavish
+and her sister, and it came to Marcella that Louis was no more to be
+blamed than she. But her native temper made her quiver to take him and
+shake some sense in him, whether he were ill or not. It was in a
+strained, quiet voice that she said:
+
+"I'm not going to talk any more about it. You'll get it when you say
+good-bye to me in Sydney," and so she turned away.
+
+Just as the _Oriana_ sailed, about six o'clock she saw him come aboard
+alone. His face was swollen, his eye blackened by a bruise; his collar
+was splashed with blood and his white drill suit very dirty and
+crumpled. She had seen Ole Fred carried on board some time ago by
+sympathetic, rather maudlin friends. She guessed that war had flamed up
+between the incongruous allies. Mrs. Hetherington, rather breathlessly,
+confirmed her suspicion.
+
+"He fought about you--Ole Fred said you'd been in his cabin, and young
+Mr. Fame went for him," she said enviously.
+
+"Of course I've been in his cabin. It's Jimmy's cabin--I had to get
+Jimmy's clean things," she said indignantly.
+
+Mrs. Hetherington put on an air of helpfulness.
+
+"You should always be so careful, dearie. I am. Oh _most_ careful! I
+never let dear Mistah Petahs put more than the tip of his shoe over my
+doorway. And as for going into his cabin--My _dear_! There is no need to
+provoke scandal; you will learn as you grow older to do things more
+discreetly."
+
+"Discreet! I hate the word! And Careful! I couldn't be careful!" she
+cried hotly, but Mrs. Hetherington tapped her playfully on the arm and
+turned away, murmuring, "Naughty, naughty!"
+
+It was very quiet on deck that night, with Louis and Ole Fred both below
+in their bunks; a few Arabs had come aboard and sat in a corner of the
+deck eating their evening meal, which they could not take under the same
+roof as unbelievers; afterwards, as the sun sank into the purple
+distance of the desert leaving a sky like a palette splashed by a
+child's indiscriminating hand, they began an eerie, monotonous chant
+that went on for hours. Later the stewards rigged up a canvas screen
+behind which the women and children could sleep, for the heat of the
+desert was making the lower cabins unbearable; mattresses were dragged
+here and there, children put to sleep upon them; people walked about,
+stepping carefully over sleeping forms as the _Oriana_ crept along at
+five miles an hour with a great searchlight forrard sending a huge fan
+of light on to the lapping waters of the Canal, and out into the brown
+sand of the desert. The schoolmaster became instructive about the rapid
+silting up of the Canal with erosion and sand storms: he discussed the
+genius and patience of de Lesseps, and argued lengthily on the
+respective merits of patience and genius. Finally, Marcella told him
+she had a headache. He suggested that he could cure it.
+
+"I have some tabloids--very sedative, very. I make a point of never
+being without them. You, I take it, have the same type of brain and
+nerve force as I--always active, always alert. What we both need is a
+depressant--pot. brom. Or, as I prefer to call it, K.B.R."
+
+"Oh no--it's very kind of you. But I'd like best to go to bed."
+
+"May I carry your mattress up for you?"
+
+"I'm not sleeping on deck. I couldn't sleep among so many people," she
+said, and, after a hurried good night went below.
+
+As she paused at her cabin door she heard a little noise and guessed
+that Jimmy was within. Opening it quickly, without switching on the
+light, she cried, "Here comes a big bear to eat you all up," as Jimmy
+often did to her. She grasped someone, and cried out in fear. It was
+someone grown up, kneeling on the floor.
+
+She switched on the light and saw Louis looking up at her, blinking in
+the sudden glare.
+
+"Oh, it's you. What do you want?" she said, breathlessly, though she
+knew quite well. In his hand he held her little bank bag of orange
+canvas in which the doctor had put ten pounds for her to spend on the
+trip.
+
+"I w-want m--my--my m--money," he began, trembling and afraid to meet
+her eyes.
+
+"To buy more whisky and make yourself more horrible than ever?" she
+cried, standing with her back to the door. "Well, I'll not give it to
+you, and if you knock me down and fight me I'll not give it you even.
+I'm a better fighter than you."
+
+"I w-want it--to--to--pay him back," he cried and began to sob,
+violently dropping the money on the floor. "He--he said--you'd been in
+his cabin and--and--and in m--mine! He s--said dev--devilish things.
+And I punched his ugly head for him! All for you! Be--be--because
+you're--you're--Oh God, give me the money and let me pay him and then
+cut him dead."
+
+"Do you mean that you owe Ole Fred money?"
+
+"Of c--course. How on earth have I managed since N-naples?"
+
+"How much is it?"
+
+"He's paid for a lot of drinks, but that doesn't count. I w-won a good
+bit at poker, too. I b-borrowed sixteen pounds from him."
+
+"But, Louis, you hadn't sixteen pounds to pay him back with," she
+cried.
+
+"Do you think I cared? Do you think I ever meant to pay him back?
+Anyway, he's helped spend it, and when we get to Sydney I shan't have to
+face him again, so I don't care a damn. I've g-given my credit note for
+ten pounds when I land to--to--the barman, too. I'm b-broke, ole girl."
+
+He sobbed helplessly.
+
+"He offered me the money. People always do. They all think I'm well off
+when I tell them who the pater is. And so I should be if he wasn't such
+a stingy old devil."
+
+His sobbing ceased, his face looked hard and cynical again. Marcella
+watched him in amazement. She was not sure whether to be disgusted with
+him or sorry for him.
+
+At last she spoke.
+
+"Louis--I don't understand a bit. Why did you do it?"
+
+"Because he said rude things about you! He hates you! I only made him
+my enemy for your sake--and now you won't let me cut adrift from him.
+That's just like all women! Once they get their claws on money there's
+no getting them off again."
+
+"I'm not asking why you fought him, you idiot. I'm asking you why you
+made such an idiotic mess of things at Naples."
+
+He sobbed for awhile, sitting on the floor, leaning his head on her
+trunk where the broken lock dangled. She laid her hand on his head with
+an incontrollable impulse of pity; his hair was matted and dull as
+though it, had not been brushed for years.
+
+"I c-can't explain it, even to myself, Marcella. But I--I th-think it
+w-was because I g-got a bit huffy with the idea th-that I was depending
+on you for everything. I f-felt as if I was tied to your apron strings.
+I felt as if I was being a g-good little b-b-boy, you know. So I thought
+I'd kick a bit! But I w-was trying damned hard before. You know I was."
+
+She knit her brows and said, very slowly, as though she had not known
+the end of the sentence when she began to speak.
+
+"Louis--don't you--perhaps--think it's wrong--to try so hard? I mean,
+it's morbid to be always saying 'I'm a drunkard. If I don't keep myself
+keyed up every minute I'll fall--' Don't you think it would be better if
+you forgot all about it, and just said, 'I'm Louis Farne, the biggest
+thing that ever was in the annals of humanity.' I don't know, but that
+seems more sensible to me. You see, you're rather a self-willed sort of
+person, really. You like to have you own way. Then why on earth not have
+your own way with whisky."
+
+He stared at her and started in surprise, his jaw dropping. She looked
+at the streaks of dust and blood on his face, through which his tears
+had made blurred runnels.
+
+"I n-never thought of that before. Of course you're right--I ought to
+have thought of it--even from the point of view of a psychologist."
+
+"I don't think it's anything to do with any 'ologists at all. It's just
+common sense. Louis, I've been thinking a lot this week. You know, when
+father used to get--ill--no, drunk (Why should I be afraid to tell the
+truth, in spite of your sneers about poor father?) I was too wee to know
+very much. But knowing him as I do, I'm certain he tried and tried
+again. After mother died he left whisky alone, though he still had it in
+the house. He took to reading philosophy instead. You see, he was not
+like you. There was a hardness, a bravery in him that you haven't got.
+You have cussedness instead and cussedness is a thing you can never be
+sure of. You see," she went on, flushing a little, and suddenly tossing
+her head proudly, "you don't understand this, and it may sound most
+appalling snobbishness to you. But my father's people have always been
+rulers--little kings--fighters, while yours have been just ordinary,
+protected folk. My people have had to fight for everything, even their
+food, their lands, their home. Yours have had shops and investments and
+policemen round every corner--there is a difference--Louis, am I
+offending you?" she asked anxiously.
+
+"Go on!" he said hoarsely.
+
+"Well, father tried. But trying wasn't any use. He read philosophy to
+get himself interested in something. But philosophy wasn't gripping
+enough. It seems we've all got to find something to anchor on, and it's
+different for almost everyone. That's where we can help each other by
+trying to understand each other's needs and offering suggestions. Like
+sailors do--with charts and things. All this philosophy of father's! It
+reminds me of a horse I saw once at Carlossie Fair. It had a most
+horrible ulcer on its shoulder and they'd tried to hide it up by
+plaiting its mane and tying it with a great heap of ribbons. That
+doesn't cure anything! You know there's a phrase we use often about
+people who are miserable--we say, 'Oh, he needs to be taken out of
+himself.' Isn't that a vivid way of putting it, if you stop to think?"
+
+He nodded, and still stared fascinated at her, drinking in every slow,
+halting word.
+
+"I suppose father brooded just like you do. He used to get very grumpy,
+and very, very unhappy. He begged and pleaded with me for understanding,
+and I couldn't give it to him. Then one day he got dreadfully drunk,
+after a whole year away from it. And mother's cousin came. He talked
+to father for five or six hours while Aunt and I kept shivering and
+thinking father would murder him. Our people usually do murder people
+who annoy them. But Cousin came out of the room and said, 'Andrew has
+cast his burden on the Lord.' He said it as if he was saying, 'Andrew
+has sneezed, or put some coal on the fire'--the most ordinary way you
+can imagine. And that was the end of whisky for father. After that he
+tried to make everyone he knew cast their burden on the Lord. I rather
+felt like laughing at the time. It seemed rather silly, and just a bit
+vulgar--most religion is, isn't it? But since I've been worrying myself
+to death about you I've understood all about poor father."
+
+"I don't see it," he said hopelessly.
+
+"Listen. Until father gave up trying himself and realized that he was
+weak, he was--was--sort of hiding the ulcer with a bunch of ribbons. But
+the minute he gave up, everything was different. He didn't say any more,
+'I'm Andrew Lashcairn, the son of generations of drunkards and madmen.'
+He changed it and said, 'I'm God's man--I've given Him my homage and
+made Him the Captain of my life.' And then, don't you see, he stopped
+being shut in inside himself any longer. He began to love me and be
+gentle to me. Louis, do you know, I believe you're tackling this worry
+in the wrong way. It can't be right--being rude to me, growling all the
+time about your father and mother--thinking, thinking, thinking all the
+time about yourself and your weakness until the whole universe is
+yourself and your weakness. Can't you see how bad it is, you who are a
+doctor? You know the old saying about giving a dog a bad name and
+hanging him. Louis, you're giving yourself a bad name, and hanging
+yourself."
+
+"Oh, I say, Marcella," he gasped. "Do you think--" he broke off, and
+groaned again.
+
+"Louis, I _know_. I don't _think_ anything about it! The other day I was
+reading a most extraordinary book the schoolmaster lent me. It was about
+St. Francis of Assisi. It said that, by contemplation of the wounds of
+Christ, in time he came to feeling pain in his hands and feet and
+side--"
+
+"Balderdash!" muttered Louis impatiently. "Auto-suggestion!"
+
+"Auto--what's that?" she asked. He explained and she cried out eagerly:
+
+"Well, can't you see you're doing exactly the same thing? And you call
+it balderdash when other people do it! Those wounds of St. Francis were
+called the Stigmata--can't you see that you're giving yourself the
+stigmata of drunkenness?"
+
+"I've got them," he cried hoarsely. "I'm done. I'm even a thief."
+
+"Oh, you idiot! How sorry I am for my father! He used to call me an
+idiot, and have me to put up with. And now I've got you, and you're a
+thousand times denser than ever I was! You're neither a drunkard nor a
+thief, Louis. Look here, to begin with, how much do you owe Fred? You
+shall have all I've got. If I give it to you you can't be a thief any
+more."
+
+Between them they had just enough money for Fred and a few shillings
+left. He wept as she fastened it in an envelope and asked him to take it
+along to Fred's cabin at once.
+
+"I--I s-say, Marcella. I--I--d-daren't," he groaned. "He'll ask me to
+wet it. And I'll not be able to say no. And oh my God, I don't want to
+do it any more."
+
+"Then I'll take it," she said promptly, and darted along with it to
+Number Fifteen, listened while Ole Fred said every insulting thing he
+could about Louis and all Louis's ancestors and then calmly asked him
+for a receipt for the money.
+
+Louis was still sitting on the floor. He looked up, his bloodshot eyes
+appealing as he looked at her.
+
+"I say, M-m-marcella. I'm sorry I said all those nasty things about your
+father."
+
+"There you are again, Louis! Forget them all! Forget everything but the
+future now. I can't imagine where I've got this conviction from, but
+it's absolutely right, I know. If you'll wipe out all your memory and
+start clean, you'll be cured."
+
+"I could never do as your father did--all that religion business."
+
+"I don't think I could, Louis. Father saw God as a militant Captain,
+someone outside himself. I'd never get thinking that about God. But it
+seems to me, in your case, you want to find someone you could trust,
+someone who would take the responsibility from you. Just as God did for
+father. Even if we say there is no God at all, he thought there was and
+acted on his thought--I suppose it's when we feel weak as father did
+that we get the idea of God at all."
+
+"It all seems rot to me," he told her. "I laugh at God--as a relic of
+fetishism."
+
+There was a long, hopeless silence. At last he said dully:
+
+"There are some doctors--our old Dean at St. Crispin's, that I could
+throw myself upon as your father threw himself upon God. But they're not
+here."
+
+As she sat, frowning, trying most desperately to help him, finding her
+unready brain a blank thing like the desert, realizing that, in all her
+reading there was nothing that could help, since there was no strong
+helper in the world save that Strong Man God who had gripped her
+father's imagination and could never grip Louis's, a whole pageant of
+dreams passed before her; dreams, intangible ideas which she grasped
+eagerly--visions--she saw herself John the Baptist, "making straight the
+way of the Lord"--she saw Siegfried, King Arthur--and, with a
+heart-leaping gasp she asked herself, "Why should not I be Louis's
+Deliverer? Why should not I be God's pathway to him? Why should not I be
+Siegfried?" And all the time her brain, peopled with myths, saw only the
+shining armour, the glittering fight; she did not see the path of God
+deeply rutted by trampling feet, burnt by the blazing footsteps of God.
+She heard herself as John's great crying voice and heeded the prison
+and the martyrdom not at all: it was a moment's flash, a moment's
+revelation. Then she turned to him. Her eyes were very bright. She spoke
+rapidly, nervously.
+
+"Louis--that doctor you know--the Dean. Do you think they are the only
+wise folks on earth? I mean, do you think wisdom begins and ends with
+wise people? I don't, you know." she paused, frowning, not quite sure
+where this thought was going to lead her.
+
+"They're the best chaps on earth," he murmured. "I c-could have b-been
+like them."
+
+"But what is it makes them wise and fine? It's--I think--because they
+get rid of themselves, and let God shine through them to other people."
+
+He turned impatiently. She caught his hot, damp, dirty hand in hers.
+
+"Louis, I don't know very much. I've proved I can't hold you very well
+already, but I care an awful lot. Louis--how would it be if you threw it
+all on to me for a while till either you believe in God or in yourself?
+And I've a sort of belief that, whichever you believe in first, you'll
+believe in the other automatically--I'm not a bit clever, Louis. I never
+was. Always I get puzzled, always I realize how utterly unlearned I am.
+Always father called me an idiot and threw things at me for it. But in
+spite of being a duffer I'm sure I can help you."
+
+"You could if you were with me every minute. I'd rather be with you than
+most people. But the minute I'm away from you I get dragged."
+
+"Well, why shouldn't I stop with you the whole time, never leave you a
+minute? Let's be married, and then I could."
+
+She looked at him anxiously. There was not a glimmer of shyness or
+excitement about her. She was still in her dream world; she knew that
+marriage would keep them together always. So she suggested marriage. She
+was not, yet, consciously in love.
+
+He stared at her, stammered a little as he tried to speak and then,
+suddenly sobered, snatched at her hand.
+
+"Do you mean it, knowing what I am? I'm an awful waster,
+Marcella--there's nothing on earth I can do for a living."
+
+She frowned a little.
+
+"But that's nothing to do with it. We'll find some way of living. You
+know that. We'd have to if we were not married, wouldn't we? And stop
+all this about being a waster. You're not anything of the sort. You're
+not anything but what you're going to be."
+
+"And you really, really, won't go back on it? I make so many promises
+and break them. I can't believe other people much."
+
+"Of course I won't go back on it. I want to stay with you. I never want
+to be with anyone else at all on earth."
+
+"But why?" he asked, humble for the first time in his life.
+
+"I haven't the slightest idea. You seem very clever to me. That's one
+thing. And--and the way you _depend_. Oh dear, I feel I've got to kidnap
+both you and Jimmy and run away with you to some safe place."
+
+"Good Lord!" he said, laughing harshly. "I'm just thinking of Violet."
+
+"Why? She can't mind, now she's married."
+
+"No. It was the idea of Violet's trying to kidnap me, and loving me
+because I depended on her. Lord, she did the depending."
+
+"That was why she wasn't any use to you, I suppose. Besides, Louis, you
+know, I love you when you're not--not ill. And I love the way your eyes
+look."
+
+"Good Lord," he cried again, and started up sharply. "I say, Marcella,
+I'm off to have a bath. Wait here for me--" He peeped into her mirror.
+He had not shaved for a week and looked thoroughly disreputable. Holding
+out his hand he looked at it earnestly. It shook, as he had expected.
+
+"Oh, I say, what a waster I look. I do hope to the Lord my hand's steady
+enough for a shave."
+
+"Let me do it," she said. "It would be fun."
+
+"I'm damned--Oh, I beg your pardon, old girl!--but I'm hanged if I'll
+not make my hand steady. I'll do it, I tell you! If I cut myself in
+bits, serve me right! I'll be half an hour and then--then--well, wait!"
+
+She heard him in his cabin, whistling as he dragged out his trunk,
+pushed it back roughly, dropped and smashed a tumbler and then rushed
+along the alley-way. After awhile she heard him come back, heard the
+sound of violent brushing, heard him kick things and swear, drop things,
+bundle things about. She sat down on her trunk suddenly weak as she
+realized what she had done. She had never thought of being married
+before; marriage seemed a thing for elderly people; there seemed
+something ungallant, something a little dragging about marriage that
+rather frightened her. Her mother's marriage, she was beginning to
+understand, had been a thing of horror. She thought of those stifled
+cries in the night at the old farm, cries that she had thought meant
+that ghosts were walking; she heard with terrible distinctness the voice
+of the Edinburgh specialist as he said, "In my opinion the injury was
+caused by a blow--a blow, Mr. Lashcairn." Then, quite suddenly she
+laughed. It was quite amusing to think of Louis's making anyone ill by
+a blow.
+
+"He'd never have fought Ole Fred if they hadn't both been drunk," she
+said slowly, staring at the boards of the floor, and her quick
+imagination showed her the two of them, fighting ignobly, all dust and
+sweat and ill-aimed blows. They could only hurt each other because both
+were too unsteady to dodge futile lungings. There was nothing of the
+Berserk about Louis.
+
+Panic came to her. The things she realized about marriage were that it
+was irrevocable, and that it meant a frighteningly close proximity; and
+in that swift vision of Louis's fight--even though it had been in
+defence of her--she had realized that it was utterly impossible for
+her to be with him for the rest of her life.
+
+"Oh how could I? How can I? How can I be glittering and shining with a
+man who is always crying? How can we be--be conquerors together when I
+never, never think of him except as 'poor boy' or 'silly idiot'? Oh
+no--no--I can't! I can't! Even if I do save him, what is there in that
+for me? I want to shine--I daren't have hot, dirty, damp hands dragging
+at me. I can't. I must be free, uncaught--"
+
+The cabin became a cage; she wanted to push out the strong steel plates
+and get out into the night: Louis's weakness, which had been all his
+appeal to her, seemed an intolerable infliction, a cruel hoax on the
+part of fate, just as though, for her shining lover, someone had
+substituted a changeling stuffed with sawdust.
+
+"I must tell him. But it's so cruel of me. I'm cruel--but I must tell
+him."
+
+In the next cabin he began to sing, rather jerkily, a song everyone on
+the ship was singing just then.
+
+"Won't you come back to Bombombay?
+Won't you come back to Bombombay?
+I'm grieving, now you're leaving
+For a land so far away.
+So sad and lonely shall I be,
+When you are far away from me."
+
+It was not the tipsy singing she had heard in the morning; it was jumpy,
+tuneless singing; she guessed that it was assisting in the process of
+shaving, for she heard a few "damns" peppering the song, which suggested
+that his shaky hand was wielding the razor badly. And with the song came
+pity that swamped disgust and disillusion. It seemed so sad to her that,
+when hope dawned upon him, he should celebrate it by singing a piece of
+sentimental, however haunting, doggerel. To go there and tell him that
+she, too, was going to break promises, to change her mind--it was
+impossible. It was like breaking promises to a little child. Came a
+blinding flash of self-realization.
+
+"Marcella Lashcairn," she said, standing under the white flare of the
+electric light and facing herself squarely in the little mirror, which
+showed her two scornful grey eyes, "You're a hypocrite! You think it's
+very splendid and grand to save a big, grown-up man from getting drunk.
+That's only because you're a girl and are flattered at his dependence on
+you. If you saw any other girl acting as you do you'd say it was sheer
+impudence! And you think it's very wonderful that anyone so clever as
+Louis should notice you. You're flattered, you see--that's self-love,
+not Louis-love! Oh very beautiful! And you're such an illogical sort of
+idiot that you want to save him, and yet you want him so splendid and
+shining that he doesn't need any saving. Oh go--get out--all of you!"
+and she waved her hand to her dreams and sent the shining Lover riding
+on on his quest without her. It was just as she used to talk to the
+gulls and the winds on Ben Grief--when she was having things out with
+herself before. "I've taken the man I want--as all the Lashcairns do
+unless they are like Aunt Janet and--Oh, anyway, I'd rather be killed
+than be like her. It's rather illogical to growl at my choice the minute
+I've made it."
+
+Before she could stop herself she was out of the cabin; she did not stop
+to think that Louis might be embarrassed: she dashed into his cabin. He
+was fastening his tie.
+
+"Louis," she cried, and stopped breathless. He seemed very different as
+she looked over his shoulder into the mirror. Cold water had removed the
+traces of a week's neglect; the razor had done a good deal, too, and a
+clean suit had transformed him. His eyes were different: there was a
+light of resolution in them and they met hers direct. She scarcely knew
+him.
+
+"Hello!" he said and let the tie hang as he stared at her.
+
+"Where's the other man who used to sleep in here?" she asked. That was
+not what she had intended to say when she came in.
+
+"He's gone. He was on the way to Cairo. I've got it to myself now."
+
+"Oh--"
+
+"Marcella," he said solemnly. "You really mean it? You're not going to
+let me down? Violet let me down--and I'm always letting people down. I
+can't trust people now."
+
+"Supposing I'd wanted to marry Violet, I'd have married her," she said,
+her brow puckered. "And I wouldn't _be_ let down."
+
+"No, I suppose you wouldn't," he said, slowly.
+
+"Louis--" she began again, breathlessly, and then let the words out in a
+torrent. "Louis, I _know_ I've got to marry you. Do you understand that?
+It's--it's inevitable. It was from the minute I met you. You'll never
+understand that, not being a Kelt, though. I know it quite well. And I'm
+afraid I'm going to shy at it. And, for my sake as well as yours, I've
+not to shy. Louis, will you grab me tight?"
+
+He stared at her, utterly at a loss. He did not begin to grasp what she
+meant. To him she was just "fickle woman" always changing her mind. He
+had, all his life, generalized about woman; he had never known a woman
+who was not rather vapid, rather brainless; he had the same idea of
+women as Professor Kraill had ventilated in his lectures--that they were
+the vehicles of the race, living for the race but getting all the fun
+they could out of the preliminary canter, since the race was a rather
+strenuous, rather joyless thing for them. And it was in men they found
+the fun. Yet here was Marcella, who was quite different from anything
+feminine he had ever seen or imagined, suddenly appealing to him not to
+let her be fickle. Immediately he felt very manly, very responsible.
+Then he laughed.
+
+"_Quis custodiet ipsos custodies?_" he said, looking into her eyes.
+
+"Father often said that. What does it mean?"
+
+"Who'll look after the looker-after?" he said, with a laugh. "Here's me
+begging you to look after me and save me from going to hell. And here's
+you asking me to grab you for fear you'll change your mind. I wonder
+which is going to have the hardest job?"
+
+She looked at him and said hurriedly:
+
+"Louis, couldn't we be married now--to-night? In Scotland we do, you
+know--just in any room without church or anything."
+
+"But--I wish we could!" he said, his hands beginning to shake.
+
+"I want to be sure--"
+
+"I'm afraid we can't," he said, anxiously. "I'm afraid we'll have to
+wait till we get to Sydney."
+
+Unexpectedly memory brought back the thought that when he became engaged
+to Violet he had kissed her and held her in his arms; he remembered it
+very well. To get to the necessary pitch of courage he had had to get
+very drunk on champagne, for champagne always made him in a generally
+kissing and love-making mood that involved him often with barmaids and
+street ladies. He knew very well that he would never have thought of
+making love to Marcella: if she had not taken things into her own hands,
+they would have parted in Sydney, necessary as he considered her to his
+well being, much as he liked to be near her. He had, even through his
+self-satisfied alcohol dream, seen her disgusted looks at Naples when he
+had spoken to her. He guessed that the sort of half-maudlin love-making
+that had won Violet would never suit Marcella. And he knew beyond the
+shadow of doubt that no power on earth save whisky could ever get him to
+make love to anything--even a young girl who seemed in love with him
+already.
+
+He was extraordinarily shy with and cynical about women. He had always
+been detested by the servants at home--more or less unjustly. He spoke
+to them abominably because he was frightened of their sex. Had he not
+bullied them when he wanted small services performed, they never would
+have been performed at all, for he would have had no courage to ask
+civilly for anything. To his sister's friends when he was forced into
+their company he was boorish, simply because girls put him into such a
+panic of inferiority that, in self defence, he had to assert himself
+unnaturally. Years ago his sister had refused to make one of a theatre
+or concert party that included Louis; either he got drunk in the
+interval and rejoined them later, making them conspicuous by his
+behaviour, or else he sat at their side glowering and boorish, afraid
+even to look at the players on the stage, too shy even to negotiate the
+purchase of chocolates or programme. The last time he had been at the
+theatre with his sister and Violet had been after a whole fortnight
+without whisky. They were rather late; the play had begun. His sister
+had whispered to him to get a programme. Afraid of being conspicuous he
+had refused; she had ordered him to get it. People behind had hissed
+"Hush" indignantly and finally Violet, with a contemptuous smile, had
+bought programmes and chocolates for herself and the sister, cutting
+Louis dead.
+
+But whisky transformed him from a twitching neurotic into a
+megalomaniac. He imagined that every woman he met was in love with him
+indecently and physically; without whisky he saw women in veils and
+shrouds; whisky made him see them with their clothes off, their eyes
+full of lewd suggestion. Even to the elderly suburban ladies who visited
+his mother he was tipsily improper. To find a girl like Marcella, who
+did not put him either in a fever or a panic of sexuality was supremely
+reassuring: she seemed to him like a nice man friend might be--though he
+never had been able to acquire a man friend. He was intensely grateful
+to her for marrying him: he was not her lover; he was her dependent: he
+was treating her as he might have treated the old Dean at the hospital,
+or as her father had treated God. But--his conventional sense told him
+to kiss her and make her "just a girl."
+
+He took both her hands in his and drew her towards him. Her eyes, which
+began by being startled, grew suddenly soft, as his face came close to
+hers and his eyes looked into hers for a wavering second before they
+dropped awkwardly and looked at her cheek. And then he kissed her. It
+took a long time. It took just as long as it takes to transform a whole
+system of reasoned thinking into something chaotic, nebulous. The
+chances are that, had that kiss never happened to Marcella, she would
+have gone on with her dreams of deliverance, her ideals of a high road
+through life. Louis's lips opened a locked door in her personality. When
+he let her go again she looked at him, rather frightened and bewildered.
+She was trembling almost unbearably; her face, usually the fairest
+white, made gold by the sun and the wind, was flushed; her grey eyes
+were deep blue; her mind, for the while, was a blank.
+
+"Oh Louis!" she gasped.
+
+"Marcella--" he began but she seized his hands again.
+
+"Oh Louis, please do it again." That time she closed her eyes and was
+only conscious of thinking that, if the ship went down, it would not
+matter just so long as nothing interrupted the kiss.
+
+"Dear little girl," he whispered, and ceased to feel frightened of her.
+As he saw the tremendous effect his kisses had on her, masculine
+superiority put pokers into his backbone and made him feel a very fine
+fellow indeed. He had no time to think what his kisses had done to
+Marcella. All that he grasped was that she was not like Violet who had
+drawn away from him to lead him on further; who had flirted with him and
+teased him seductively, and made him pay dearly for kisses by pleadings
+and humiliations: who had never given anything, and had never come one
+inch of the way to meet him.
+
+"I say, Marcella," he said, as he let her go. "Don't you know anything
+at all about the art of lying? Can't you lie?"
+
+She frowned at him. He went on quickly.
+
+"I've never met a girl yet who admitted that she liked a man to kiss
+her. They lie and lie--they put up barriers every minute."
+
+"There can't be barriers between us, Louis. I'd rather die than have
+barriers," she said quietly, though she did not realize why, or what she
+implied.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+Looking back in after years on the six weeks of the voyage Marcella saw
+them as days and nights coloured by madness and storms through which
+Jimmy went like a little wistful ghost, hanging on to her hand, the only
+thing in grey tones amidst splashes of wild colour. Many a time in the
+sun-drowned days and windless nights Marcella was reminded of those old
+tales she had heard on Lashnagar from Wullie's lips, of the hot summer
+when the witch-woman came and men went mad just before the destruction
+came on the village. It was as though the _Oriana_ went on ploughing
+through the waters, with the Dog-Star hitched to her masthead inflaming
+men's blood. Marcella was in a state of puzzlement. She was puzzled at
+herself, puzzled at Louis, puzzled at the people round her. Men went
+about barefoot in pyjamas, women in muslin nightdresses all day after
+Suez; in the Indian Ocean, one blazing day, they ran into the tail of a
+monsoon; the lower decks were swamped and the steerage passengers were
+sent on to the upper decks, where Marcella and Louis sat surrounded by
+half a dozen forlorn children whose parents had succumbed to the
+pitching of the ship and the heat. Great walls of green, unfoaming water
+rose sullenly and menacingly higher than the ship, which tossed like a
+weightless cork; seas came aboard with an effect of silence; down in
+the saloon glasses, crockery and cutlery crashed to the deck with a
+momentary fracture of the deadly quiet which seemed all the more silent
+afterwards: occasionally a child screamed in fright and was hushed by an
+almost voiceless mother, while stewards went about with trays of iced
+drinks, slipping to the deck in a dead faint now and again with a
+momentary smash that was swallowed to silence immediately. Underneath
+the sulky, heaving water lurked death, silent and sharp, from which the
+shoals of flying fishes escaped for the moment by soundless, silvery,
+aimless poising in the blue air, only to fall back exhausted again into
+the green water and the waiting white jaws. Some of the fishes flopped
+on board, and were put out of life by the blows of the sailors who dried
+and stuffed them and sold them afterwards to the passengers. To Marcella
+everything seemed cruel and mad and preying. The passengers were
+cruel--to each other and to the stewards; one day, going into the saloon
+by chance, she found Knollys leaning over a table looking white and
+sick, as he tried to polish spoons and forks.
+
+"Are you ill?" she asked him.
+
+"There's only two of us--including me--that haven't crocked up," he
+said; "people don't seem to think it's hot for us, or that we feel fed
+up at all. That Mrs. Hetherington seems to think I'm a private sort of
+lady's maid to her alone. All these women do--sitting about in deck
+chairs calling 'Steward' all day long! In the third class alone there's
+six stewards in hospital! And only yesterday I caught it from the Chief
+because the cutlery hadn't been polished--not that that's my job at all,
+really--"
+
+The next moment Knollys fell over in a dead faint, and copying what she
+had seen him do when passengers fainted, Marcella fetched a pillow from
+her cabin, laid it under his back on the floor and left him while she
+polished the cutlery. Louis found her there and they came near to
+fighting about it.
+
+"What on earth are you doing?" he asked in amazement.
+
+"Poor Knollys has gone down," she said, thinking that adequate
+explanation.
+
+Louis looked at him casually. Marcella was coming to understand that he
+looked upon illness with a certain hardness and lack of pity that
+surprised her; he was immensely interested in it, he liked to dabble in
+it, but not from a passion of healing nearly so much as from curiosity
+and technical interest. To him, in illness, curing the patient mattered
+infinitely less than beating the disease. He had a queer snobbishness
+about illness, too, that amazed her. To him Knollys, a steward, ill
+meant infinitely less than the illness of a member of his own class
+would have meant. This struck Marcella as illogical. To her it seemed
+that, in illness at least, all men were brothers.
+
+"There's a stoker just died of heat apoplexy: there'll be a funeral
+presently," he said coolly. "What on earth are you doing?"
+
+"People are so unkind. Knollys got into trouble yesterday because these
+silly things were not clean," she said, polishing away furiously.
+
+"But you can't do the work of a servant," he said, aghast.
+
+"I can. Of course I can. I often have. I've worked in the fields with
+the men, and I've milked the cows and made the butter. Oh, lots of
+things--"
+
+"Oh well, I suppose a farmer's daughter can do those things, Marcella.
+But, look here, old girl, when we're married you'll have to be on your
+dignity a bit."
+
+She flushed a little and the storm light came into her eyes. Louis did
+not see it. He sat on the edge of the table, and expostulated with her
+for a long time. But she went on until the last spoon was polished.
+
+"Don't you think we'd better get something for Knollys? Sal volatile or
+iced water, or something?" she said at last, looking at her black hands.
+
+He shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Oh, leave him alone. It's typical of the servant class to be bowled
+over on the slightest provocation. I expect, as a matter of fact, he can
+hear what we're saying now. He's got you taped pretty well and knew that
+if he worked on your sympathies you'd do his work while he miked about.
+The working class is always like that--no backbone."
+
+She wondered if he were joking, but she saw from his solemn face that he
+meant it all, and she gathered that he considered himself very much
+better than Knollys. He did not see the contemptuous amusement in her
+face, and went on, stammering a little because he had at last brought
+himself to say something that had been on his mind for days.
+
+He lit a cigarette nervously, fumbled with a bunch of keys in his
+trousers pocket and then, looking at her dirty hands, said:
+
+"L-l-look here, old girl. I d-don't w-want to quarrel with you. But I
+w-want you to f-face things a bit. Y-you s-see--you've been used to a
+class of society quite different from mine. You know--look here, I say,
+I don't want you to go making _faux pas_."
+
+"What do you mean?" she asked ominously.
+
+"That's French for mistakes, don't you know--mistakes in--er--well, what
+one might call breeding, don't you know. Y-you know--associating with
+stewards and--and--common people like Jimmy, for instance. He's the very
+lowest bourgeois type."
+
+"Much lower, I suppose, than Ole Fred, and those drinkers in New
+Zealand, isn't he?" she said calmly, her eyes glinting. He flushed hotly
+and looked hurt. Immediately she was sorry.
+
+"There, I'm sorry, Louis. I ought not to have said a thing like that. It
+was unforgivable. But you do talk like an idiot. How on earth can one
+make mistakes in breeding? Oh, you and I talk different languages,
+that's all, and it's not any use at all trying to think and talk the
+same."
+
+"Well, I know more of the world than you do, and you must let me teach
+you, Marcella. Oh, I know you're--you're braver and stronger morally
+than I. But, you know, when we get to Sydney and are married we'll have
+to stay in hotels and--and--I don't want my wife making _faux pas_. It'd
+be just like you--you're such a dear, really--to go doing things
+servants ought to do--in public, I mean, and make a fool of me."
+
+She looked at him and smiled reminiscently and rather cruelly. But he
+looked so solemn, so serious that, in sheer mischief, she told him that
+she would be very careful not to make him conspicuous by her blunders.
+And then she asked him an unexpected question.
+
+"Louis, did you write and tell your father you didn't want any more
+money?"
+
+He took out his packet of cigarettes--he never possessed a cigarette
+case, such things were to be turned into money too easily. His hands
+were trembling as he struck a match.
+
+"Yes--I--t-told him," he said jerkily.
+
+"What did you say about me?" she asked curiously.
+
+He pondered for a moment. At last he decided to be honest.
+
+"I didn't tell him."
+
+"Didn't you, Louis?" she said, looking hurt. "Why?"
+
+"He'd only think you were a waster. He wouldn't think anyone but a
+waster would marry me. If I told him you were a Scotch farmer's daughter
+he'd picture something in short skirts, red cheeks and bare legs that
+talked like Harry Lauder. Or else he'd think I was lying, and had got
+off with a barmaid and wasn't married at all, and was living on some
+girl. They'd always think the worst of me, at home. I'm not even going
+to tell the Mater--"
+
+She thought for some minutes.
+
+"I don't much care," she said at last. "I think your father's rather a
+horrible man, but I may be wrong about him. My impressions of him are
+formed from yours, you see. It seems that no one but a most inhuman man
+could kick his son out. But then--well, I don't know just how much you
+worried him. But I'd have liked you to tell your mother. She looked so
+grieved that day on the tender, and she was crying so miserably. I'd
+have liked her to know you were taken care of."
+
+"She wouldn't believe it, either, Marcella," he said gloomily. "And you
+don't know my Mater. The very fact that you were in the steerage would
+make her think you couldn't possibly be any good in the world. If I told
+her you cleaned spoons and forks for a steward she'd think you did it
+from habit because you'd been someone's servant. They've no
+imagination--"
+
+"All mothers have, I'm sure," she told him. "I'd have liked your mother
+to be my friend. I'd have liked to write to her about you--"
+
+"God forbid," he said fervently, and once more she gave way.
+
+Later on that day they discussed ways and means. His definite picture of
+getting married and staying in hotels in Sydney had made the dream
+concrete. She had hitherto simply seen them both glittering along in an
+aura of Deliverance. Right at the back of her mind she still clung to
+pictures of knightly mail, obtained from she had not the slightest idea
+where. But that fitted badly with hotels in Sydney and conventions he
+was going to teach her. In the evening they went to their favourite seat
+on the anchor and watched the phosphorescence shimmering away in ghostly
+paths to the star-splashed sky.
+
+"Louis," she said hurriedly, "how much does it cost you to get married
+in Australia?"
+
+"Lord knows, I don't," he said, sitting up sharp. "There's a music-hall
+song about 'She cost me seven and sixpence; I wish I'd bought a dog.'
+But that's in England. I've a hazy notion that it's much more expensive
+in Australia than England. Why?"
+
+"I'm wondering how we're going to do it. We've about eleven shillings
+in the world--you see, uncle is meeting me in Melbourne. I had a cable
+at Port Said to say so. And I'm afraid I'll have to do a little evasion.
+I don't know him at all, but he may think it his duty to see that I go
+with him to Wooratonga. Or he may enquire into your prospects like
+uncles do--"
+
+"Good God!" he said, throwing his cigarette overboard and staring
+straight at her in horror. "I hadn't thought of that."
+
+"Nor had I. It was all just romance till you mentioned it to-day, and
+then--probably because I was doing such a prosaic thing as cleaning
+spoons and forks, I saw all the details for the first time. Wedding
+rings are made of gold. They must cost a tremendous lot of money. And if
+being married is only seven and sixpence, I don't see how we are going
+to spare seven and sixpence out of eleven shillings--we've got to eat
+something, and live somewhere. You can't eat marriage licences, nor use
+them as shelter. I've seen one once, belonging to Mrs. Mactavish. She
+kept it sewed inside the lining of her bodice, all among the bits of
+whalebone that made her stand up straight. It's a crackly thing like a
+cheque--"
+
+"Oh, do stop talking nonsense," cried Louis, suddenly desperate when
+faced with a problem. "Marcella, what are we going to do? Oh, why did I
+spend that money? Why were you such a fool as to pay it back to Fred?
+He's drunk it all by now. It did him no good, and think how useful it
+would have been to us!"
+
+"Don't be so idiotic! As if I'd be married with money belonging to him!
+My goodness! The best thing is not to be married at all, until we've
+worked for some money."
+
+"Oh yes," he cried bitterly. "Just like a woman, backing out now things
+are a bit difficult! I tell you, if we're parted when we get to Sydney
+I'll be in with the first waster that comes along and start the whole
+beastly pub-crawl again--"
+
+"But--eleven shillings, Louis!" she said, laughing at the absurdity of
+it.
+
+"We've _got_ to get the money!" he cried wildly. "If I do a burglary!
+Look here, Marcella, the only thing is for me to get boozed and borrow
+it! If I had half a dozen whiskies I'd go to the Governor-General
+himself and get it out of him! But if I were not boozed I couldn't
+ask--ask even for the job of gorse-grubbing or road sweeping. I haven't
+even the courage to ask you for a kiss if I'm not boozed."
+
+He looked at her. His eyes were infinitely pathetic.
+
+"Is there anyone about?" she whispered.
+
+"Only the man in the crow's-nest," he said, "why?"
+
+"Never mind him--give me a kiss, Louis. I'm not frightened, if you are!"
+she whispered softly, and half awkward and shy he held her in his arms,
+gathering courage as he felt how she trembled, and guessed how his
+kisses made her soft and helpless in his arms. "Let's forget worries for
+a while--we'll never be sitting on an anchor in the Indian Ocean again,
+in a sea of ghost lights, shall we, Louis?"
+
+"Say 'Louis dear,'" he ordered, gathering courage, kissing her hand. She
+said it, a little hesitatingly.
+
+"We never say words like that at home," she whispered. "Only mother did,
+because she was English--"
+
+"I'm English, too. I like words like that. Now say 'Louis darling.'"
+
+"It sounds as if you're a baby."
+
+"So I am--Marcella's baby," he whispered. "Say 'Louis darling.'"
+
+"I can't, Louis," she said uneasily, "I can't _say_ love things. I can
+only do them. I love you--oh, most dreadfully, but I can't talk about
+it."
+
+She buried her face on his shoulder. Through his thin canvas coat she
+could feel his heart thumping as hers was.
+
+"I'm going to kiss that funny little hollow place at the bottom of your
+neck," she whispered in a smothered voice. "What a good thing you don't
+wear collars in the Indian Ocean! Louis, tell me all the funny Latin
+names for the bones in your fingers, and I'll kiss them all--I can't say
+silly words to you like--like Violet could."
+
+After a while he tried to carry his point.
+
+"Now say 'Louis darling,'" he insisted.
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"Why can't you be like an ordinary girl?" he objected, holding her tight
+so that he could look into her face. "Ordinary girls don't mind calling
+a chap darling."
+
+"I can't, anyway. I _never_ can talk much, unless I'm simply taken out
+of myself and made to. I can't imagine what we'll find to talk about all
+the time when we're married. But--do you know, whenever we get up here
+in the dark like this, I always wish it was Sydney to-morrow, and we
+could be married. I hate to be away from you a minute; I wish we could
+be together all day and all night, without stopping for meal times--"
+
+"You've got the tropics badly, my child," he said, laughing a little
+forcedly, as he tried to light a cigarette with trembling fingers and
+finally gave it up.
+
+"Why? Do people love each other more in the tropics?" she asked. "You
+love me, don't you?"
+
+"Of course I do. But girls are not supposed to talk about it like men
+do. Girls have to pretend they don't feel all wobbly and anyhow, because
+it's more fun for a man when a girl doesn't hurl herself at him."
+
+"But why pretend? Why not be honest about it?" she said, her voice a
+little flat. "You want me to love you, don't you?"
+
+"Course I do. But you're so queer. Most girls let a chap do the
+love-making. They dress themselves up--all laces and ribbons and things,
+and pretend they're frightened to make a chap all the keener."
+
+She thought it out, sitting up as straight as possible.
+
+"I couldn't, Louis," she said decidedly. "I've read that in books, years
+ago. I didn't understand it then, but I do now. And I think it's
+horrible. Father had a lot of books about those things and I read them
+to him when he was ill. I was looking one up again the other day--that
+day you threw the teapot in the sea." And she told him about the
+"preliminary canter."
+
+"Well, that's absolutely right," he said coolly. "Women are like that.
+They're specialized for sex. Don't you admit that you've no brains?
+You've told me so many a time, and your father always said you were an
+idiot. And don't you admit that when I kiss you--especially here in the
+tropics where everything is a bit accelerated--you feel different--all
+wobbly--?"
+
+She nodded, looking startled.
+
+"Well, what does it mean? It simply means you're specialized. Yes you
+are, Marcella. Specialized as a woman. All this--this liking to be
+kissed, and feeling wobbly. They're Kraill's preliminary canter."
+
+"Oh no--no!" she cried in horror.
+
+"Oh, yes, yes!" he mocked, laughing at her gently.
+
+"But Louis, how horrible!"
+
+"Well, you're always preaching honesty and facing facts," he said
+bluntly.
+
+"Yes--" she said thoughtfully. "But--I don't like it. I hate it. I don't
+believe Kraill thinks like that, really--I've read three of his courses
+of lectures and in all of them he doesn't seem to approve of women being
+like that. Just vehicles of existence or bundles of sensation. He seems,
+to me, to resent women."
+
+"Yes--after many love adventures," he began.
+
+"But--don't you think all the time he was just getting his education?
+Like I am? A month ago I'd have been horrified at the thought of kissing
+you. Now I like it. A few months ago I loathed the thought of having a
+body--and just everything connected with it. Now, ever since that day I
+was getting my nice frock ready to go with you to Pompeii I've not
+minded it a bit. All the time, now, I wish I was nicer."
+
+"Because you've fallen in love, my child," he said, smiling in supreme
+superiority. "And falling in love instructs even fools."
+
+"It's taught me some very lovely things the last few days, Louis," she
+said dreamily. "It's taught me that I've to be very shining, for you.
+And it's taught me that I'd die for you very happily. But what you've
+just said--about kissing--has suddenly taught me something very beastly.
+I wanted to love you with my soul and my mind. And now you say it's the
+hot weather!"
+
+"Well, so it is, dearie. Love's not a spiritual nor a mental thing. It's
+purely physical. A love affair is always a thousand times swifter under
+the Southern Cross than under the Great Bear. And it's a million times
+swifter on board ship than anywhere else because people are thrown into
+such close contact. They've nothing to do and their bodies get slack and
+pampered, and they eat heaps too much. It's like the Romans in the dying
+days of Pompeii--eating, drinking and physical love-making. One day I
+heard Kraill say in a lecture that men and women can't work together, in
+offices or anything, or scientific laboratories because
+they--well--they'd get in each other's light and make each other
+jumpy."
+
+"And do you believe it?"
+
+"Course I do," he said. "Even if you had the brains or the knowledge
+for--say research work, I couldn't work with you. I'd be thinking of the
+way your lips look when they're getting ready to kiss me; and of your
+white shoulders that I can just catch a peep of when you sit a little
+way behind me, in that white blouse with little fleur-de-lys on the
+collar. Naturally if I tried to work then, the work would go to pot."
+
+"But--" she tried to control her voice, which shook in spite of herself,
+"do you--think of those things--about me?"
+
+"Of course. All men do about their women."
+
+"It's horrible," she gasped, frowning at the Southern Cross. "And
+doesn't it mean that men are specialized, too?"
+
+"Not a bit of it! Men have to do the work of the world. Women are just
+the softness of life."
+
+"Cushions for men to fall on?" she said mischievously.
+
+"No, half-holidays when he's fed up with work." He looked at her,
+laughing at her indignant face. "Why be superior, Marcella? You're just
+as bad as anyone else, only you're not used to it and haven't thought of
+it before. Who likes being kissed?"
+
+"Oh, but it wouldn't get in the way of my work," she cried, flushing
+hotly.
+
+"Wait till you try it, dear child. The first time I ever got the fever
+taught me a lot. It wasn't love, of course."
+
+"When you loved Violet?" she asked in low tones.
+
+"Oh Lord no! This was a little French girl who picked me up when I was
+squiffed after I'd passed the First. About twenty of us--all from St.
+Crispin's--had been up for the First. We all passed but two, and we all
+had to get drunk to buck those two up. We went to the Empire and kicked
+up such a gory din that we were helped out. A little mamzelle from the
+Promenade took charge of me. I--I hadn't thought about those things much
+before. At home they were taboo. I'd always been terrified of girls--If
+I hadn't been drunk then I'd never have done it. I thought it
+unutterably beastly. For months after that I was afraid to look the
+Mater in the face. I thought she was unutterably beastly, as well, just
+because she was a woman. It made a tremendous dint on me."
+
+Marcella grasped about a tenth of what he meant. The rest sank into her
+mind to puzzle her later. But something sprang to the top of her
+consciousness and raised a question.
+
+"Louis," she said quickly, "That night at Naples--when you were naughty.
+You talked French to me. I don't know what you said, but the
+schoolmaster looked shocked."
+
+He flushed.
+
+"Yes, I've been told that before. I always do talk French if I meet a
+girl when I'm boozy. I used to, to Violet, and she was--oh frightfully
+disgusted. And once I did to my sister! She, unfortunately, understands
+French. I suppose it's a good thing you don't."
+
+"Louis, do you say--_wrong_ things in French" she whispered.
+"Things--you know, beastly things?"
+
+He hesitated a moment and an impulse of honesty made him tell her the
+truth.
+
+"Yes, I believe I say perfectly appalling things. You see--it's like
+this. I'm a queer inhibited sort of thing, dear. I'm always--till you
+took me in hand--fighting drink. I'm in a state of fighting and
+inhibiting. I've always been like that. Even when I was a little kid I
+was afraid to be natural because I was taught that the natural impulse
+was the wrong one. I sometimes want to say something frightfully
+charming to you, and don't for fear it's silly. I'm always wondering
+what people will think of me--because I'm so often wrong, you know."
+
+"I just don't care what anyone says or thinks," she broke in.
+
+"There's the difference between us, then. Well, you see, being an
+ordinary, average sort of human being, I think a lot about girls and all
+that. Only deep down is the puritanical old idea that it's wicked to do
+so. Really, honestly, Marcella, I'm not pulling your leg--when I first
+started dissecting at the hospital, I felt horribly indecent. It was a
+female thigh! I felt as if it ought to be clothed, somehow--I sort of
+kept thinking the Pater or someone would come into the lab, and round on
+me for being immoral. If it had been a male thigh I wouldn't have cared
+a brass tanner!"
+
+"It must be awful to have barriers in your mind," she pondered.
+
+"It was just the same with booze. If I had a beer or a whisky in the
+club as all the others did, I saw the Pater disembodied before me, and
+had another to give me the courage necessary to face him. Everything,
+you see, everything--girls, drink, curiosities, courtesies,
+kindness--all got lumped together as things to keep in hand. I got in a
+fever of self-consciousness. I do now. I think everyone is watching and
+criticizing me. Then, you see, when I'm drunk, the watch I set on myself
+is turned out to grass and I get a damned good rest. I let myself rip!
+In my sober moments I daren't go and order tea for the Mater in a
+bunshop because I'm petrified with terror of the waitress. When I'm
+drunk I'd barge into a harem. That first affair--with the French
+girl--was a tremendous thing to me. Most boys have played about with
+that sort of thing before that age. They looked down on me because I
+hadn't. But it made such a deep dint on my brain that whisky and sex and
+French are all mixed up together and the one releases the other."
+
+She sighed.
+
+"I do wish Dr. Angus was here, Louis," she said. "I wish I understood
+better."
+
+"You understand better than Violet did. She used to stay at our place a
+good deal, you know, and go with us to the seaside and to Scotland. Even
+when I was right off whisky she used to drive me to it. Evening dress,
+you know. Oh, frightfully _evening_! And--in a queer old place we stayed
+in in Scotland once there were heaps of mice. She used to run out of her
+room in the middle of the night saying she was frightened of them. And
+then I had to carry her back, and rub her feet because they'd got cold.
+She was rather a maddening sort of person, you know. She'd lead one on
+to biting one's nails and tearing one's hair and then she'd laugh and
+kiss her hand and run away with my sister into her bedroom. And they'd
+both laugh. She understood the value of being a woman, did Violet. And
+she didn't let herself go cheap--I used to get the key of the tantalus
+and cart a whole decanter of whisky to bed to get over it. If she'd just
+have let me kiss her--"
+
+He paused, frowning reminiscently.
+
+Marcella sighed, and laid a cool, firm hand on Louis's.
+
+"Louis--I think I'm--cheap."
+
+"So are air and water, dearie," he cried, with sudden passion that
+surprised her.
+
+"I don't think I'll ever understand men, though. Wine, women and song
+they seem to lump together into a sort of tolerated degradation."
+
+"I don't know much about song, but women and wine are certainly to be
+lumped together. They're both an uncontrollable hunger. And they give
+you a thick head afterwards! You say that Professor chap in his lectures
+resents women. Of course he does. Don't you think I resent whisky?
+Wouldn't any man resent the thing that makes dints in him, makes him
+undignified, body and soul, and gives him a thick head and a sense of
+repentance? I guess I look a pretty mucky spectacle when I'm drunk. I
+see myself afterwards, and can imagine the rest. Well, a man in the
+throes of a woman orgy is just as undignified--even if he doesn't
+lurch--oh and slobber! I've never heard that your Professor drinks. That
+doesn't happen to be his hunger, you see. But if he drank to the same
+extent as he has love-affairs he'd be in an asylum now; and if he were a
+woman he'd be on the streets! No woman--even if she were a Grand
+Duchess--would be tolerated with the same number of sex affairs as a man
+can have. She'd just have to be a prostitute out and out--without
+choice--or else keep herself in hand."
+
+"Like Aunt Janet," murmured Marcella to herself, "and come to acid
+drops."
+
+Aloud she said. "Louis--I wish you wouldn't tell me. I always think of
+clever men like Kraill as gods and heroes--I hate to think they have
+holes in them. They have such wonderful thoughts."
+
+"That's the devil of it. I know they have. He has--Kraill. I've been to
+his lectures and felt inspired to do anything. They most of them think
+much better than they can do, that's about the size of it! I suppose we
+all do that more or less, but we don't put it on paper to be used in
+evidence against us. We think fine things and do smudged ones, and so
+the world goes on."
+
+There was a long silence. She crept a little closer to him and put her
+hand into his. He held it tight. It was almost as if her world were
+shaking about her and even his unsteady hand seemed some support.
+
+At last she said, as if talking to herself.
+
+"Louis--can't something be done for us all? Can't we have these things
+cut out of us like cancers? Can't we get rid of these horrible desires
+as we've lost tails and hair and things we don't need? Then in time
+people would be born without them. Louis--you don't think--think of me
+like that, do you--as a--a hunger? As something you must have if you
+don't have whisky, or as something that will drive you to whisky if I go
+away as Violet did?"
+
+"I'm--I'm afraid I do, old girl," he said. "It's natural--I say,
+Marcella--you're only a kid. I don't believe you quite realize what
+you've taken on--in that way."
+
+She looked startled. Then she laughed gaily.
+
+"I'm not afraid of my part of it, Louis," she said, "but I can't help
+thinking that if I'm to be--as you put it--a sort of hunger substituted
+for whisky, we're all wrong. Suppose I died, for instance?"
+
+"Marcella, if you die I shall die too. Anything else is unthinkable. I
+can't face life without you, now. I can't be a pariah again. You're a
+hunger to me. I'll admit it. But you're more. You're a saviour. And--you
+don't know anything about it, dearie. But when we're married you will,
+and I suppose I'll be just the same sort of hunger to you, then. It's no
+use blinking your eyes to it. And--be damned glad I love you, and am not
+like some sort of men. Otherwise--well, Lord knows what would have
+happened to you. You're so honest that you think everyone else is. And
+yet, transparent little fool that you are, in common-sense things, I
+know that you're going to keep me straight."
+
+Back came trooping all the visions of Deliverance, a rich pageantry
+shutting away the footmarks of the beast she had just glimpsed.
+
+As every beat of the engines brought them nearer and nearer to Sydney
+consideration of ways and means became even more anxious. Louis spent
+glowering days. Marcella was quite certain that everything would turn
+out well.
+
+It was in the dull run between Colombo and Fremantle that they decided
+upon a plan of action. The nights were getting colder now; they had to
+sit in thick coats in the evenings. This particular evening it was
+raining greyly, but they could not sit in the saloon because Ole Fred
+and his gang had started a smoking concert, and Marcella and Louis would
+have been ejected forcibly.
+
+"You're such a fatuous optimist, Marcella," he said impatiently. "Lord,
+I wish I'd never started on this business! Everything's against us--I
+knew it would be! We'll give it up. You go off into the back blocks
+where you will at least be sure of food and a roof. And I'll go to the
+devil in the same old way as quickly as possible."
+
+"Oh, I could shake you!" she cried. "You know quite well I'm not going
+to leave you, if we have to live on eleven shillings for the rest of our
+lives. It isn't eleven shillings now, either. I gave Jimmy half a crown
+to spend at Colombo."
+
+"Fool," he muttered gloomily.
+
+"Who spent fifteen pounds?" she retorted.
+
+"I say, I'm sorry, old girl, but my nerves are a bundle of rags! I've
+never had a wife to worry about before--and I can't see how I'm going to
+make enough money to make her my wife yet--"
+
+Marcella knew nothing whatever about money. She had a few jewels of her
+mother, but it did not occur to her that they were worth money. Louis
+had absolutely nothing of value. Guided by past experience his mother
+had given him the barest necessities for clothes; his watch and most of
+his clothes he had sold before he sailed. What made him so irritable
+with Marcella was the knowledge that he could easily get the money by
+being drunk. Publicans are proverbially open-handed; most publicans
+would have lent him ten pounds to spend in their establishment if he had
+thoroughly and courageously drunk and pitched some tale about expecting
+money by the English mail. He certainly looked worth ten pounds and his
+father's name as a publisher was fairly well known even in the Colonies.
+He had frequently "raised" twenty or thirty pounds in this way in New
+Zealand. Once or twice he had borrowed a few pounds from a doctor by
+telling him a pitiful tale, but most doctors recognized his symptoms and
+refused to help him to hurt himself.
+
+Suddenly Marcella gave a little giggle of sheer amusement.
+
+"I don't see much to laugh at," he growled.
+
+"I'm thinking of how worried you were about my dignity as your wife and
+afraid I'd disgrace you in hotels by being friendly with the servants,"
+she said. "It doesn't look as if we're going to get a tent even."
+
+He read unkindness into her chaffing words and flushed hotly.
+
+Suddenly his silly pride that had lain asleep, for the most part, since
+Port Said, gave a little struggle and came to wakefulness again. He
+could not have her laugh at him however good-naturedly. Just as he had
+not realized he was lying to her when he told her highly coloured
+versions of his surgical exploits, so he scarcely realized he was lying,
+as he said, mysteriously:
+
+"Don't be too sure, my child. You won't be laughing at me soon. I may be
+a bit of a waster, but I'm not the sort to marry a girl without knowing
+how I'm going to support her. How do you know you won't be the guest of
+the Governor-General as soon as he knows I'm in Sydney--"
+
+"Whatever do you mean? Oh, Louis, don't tell me stories! And I don't
+want to go and see people like Governor-Generals. I want to be alone
+with you."
+
+"You probably will, my dear girl. But you must remember that a secret
+service man has to cover up his traces in every way. He has to hide
+everything, even from his wife."
+
+"Louis," she said in real distress, clutching his arm, "are you really
+in the secret service? I'll--I'll forget it all, if you're telling me
+lies. I'll never think of it again. But it so awful to think you are
+lying to me!"
+
+"Why should I lie, my darling?" he said, looking hurt, but staring at
+her mouth instead of looking into her eyes.
+
+"You--you told me--never--to believe you, Louis. Oh, you do make it hard
+for me. I don't know what to believe. If you're in the secret service
+don't they pay you any money?"
+
+"Of course--they pay me enough to keep myself going. But it's a
+patriotic work, you know. And as for not believing me, I told you not to
+believe me about drinking. That was all."
+
+"But Louis, if you have money, why are you so worried about it now?
+And--didn't you tell me your father sent you out here?"
+
+"Yes, he did, dearie," he said earnestly. "It's quite true. I was a
+rotter and he got fed up with me. But I've done a lot of secret service
+work and didn't dare even tell him. I'm under an oath of secrecy. The
+times I've had to let him think I was out all night, simply too squiffy
+to get home when in reality I was working--for England--"
+
+"And you really, truly mean it, Louis? Louis, it would break my heart
+right in two if I thought you were lying now."
+
+"I swear it, on my love for you. I can see, now, that I ought to have
+told the Pater all about it. But I thought when he was so unbelieving
+I'd take his bally pound a week. After all, it isn't much. It's what he
+spends on one dinner often, and it would keep me in cigarettes, at any
+rate. So I thought I'd stick to it, as well as my secret service screw.
+Besides--supposing he wasn't my father at all? Supposing he'd been paid
+by someone--someone very much more exalted than he, to bring me up?"
+
+"Whatever do you mean, Louis?" she cried.
+
+"Oh, never mind, never mind, old girl. But some day, perhaps, you'll
+know all I've had to go through--"
+
+There was a pause full of strained thinking. At last she burst out
+nervously, "But you've told your father not to send any more money,
+haven't you?"
+
+"Yes, of course. I felt I couldn't be married to you on money I didn't
+earn. But this secret service--it is all so confidential--we have to
+guard our orders most carefully in case they get anything--"
+
+"They? Who are they?" she asked quickly.
+
+"The enemy--Germans and Chinese. There's quite a conspiracy on foot in
+Australia," he added, looking important. But he would tell her no more.
+
+"Shall you be at work as soon as we get to Sydney?" she asked.
+
+"It all depends on my orders. If we can stagger through the first few
+weeks, till I can get some cash--I say, Marcella, why shouldn't you ask
+your uncle for some money?"
+
+"Because he'd make me go home with him if I did."
+
+"But couldn't you tell him you'd changed your plans, and had a good job
+in Sydney? We can make up a tale for him. Just think how jolly it will
+be to be together, darling! I know it isn't nice to ask people for
+money, but--it's worth it, isn't it? You need never see him again.
+Anyway, if you went to live with him you'd cost him a considerable
+amount, wouldn't you? Why shouldn't he give you some money now instead
+of that? After all, it's up to well-to-do relations to help a girl who's
+all alone in the world. Your father's dead--"
+
+It took him all the morning to persuade her. It was only when he told
+her how he went all to pieces if he had to worry about money, and a
+moment later painted glowing pictures of the month they would have
+together if his orders permitted, before they attempted to do anything
+definite, that she consented. He very rapidly sketched a tale for her to
+tell her uncle; Marcella hated the lies, for they seemed unnecessary
+until Louis told her that no uncle in his senses would let her marry a
+man she had only known six weeks.
+
+"But if you talked to him, Louis," she pleaded, "I'm sure he'd like
+you."
+
+"I'm not. He'd ask what my job is, and if it was known that I'd given
+away the fact that a secret service agent was in Sydney I might even get
+shot as a spy," he said earnestly, and at last, in a maze of worry, she
+gave way.
+
+The night before Melbourne she gave him her father's signet ring--a
+heavy gold thing that Andrew had given her just before he died, telling
+her it must never leave her possession. He seemed very pleased with it,
+and told her laughingly that if they could not afford to buy a ring she
+would be married with that as a temporary measure.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+It was a wet, miserable day when they drew alongside at Port Philip.
+Louis took the communal eight shillings, Marcella kept sixpence for
+luck. He went ashore before most of the passengers; she waited on board
+for her uncle.
+
+When he came he was not at all what she had expected him to be. To begin
+with, he was very chilly--a queer, nervous man who told her he had not
+been in Melbourne for ten years and found great changes. He seemed to
+live so much alone that he was frightened to talk to anyone. His hands
+were hard with labour, but he told her casually that he had a sheep run
+bigger than Yorkshire and a hundred thousand sheep. His wife had been
+dead for five years: his house was run by his three daughters.
+
+"We live seventy miles from a station, and fifty miles from the nearest
+neighbours," he said, looking at her doubtfully. "You don't think you'll
+be lonely? It's a hard life--I had no time to tell your aunt the many
+disadvantages, for she said you'd started when she cabled."
+
+Marcella saw quite well that she was not wanted and felt immensely
+relieved that there was no necessity for her to go to Wooratonga.
+Haltingly and stumblingly she asked him for the money, without telling
+him Louis's chain of lies at all. He took little notice of what she
+said. Money means very little in Australia where things are done on a
+large scale. Looking immensely relieved he said it would no doubt be
+much happier for her to go to stay with her friends--and how much money
+did she want?
+
+Marcella thought ten pounds--she really did not know. But he laughed at
+that and, taking her along to his bank, gave her fifty pounds. It seemed
+a lot of money to her, but he waved her thanks away, telling her a long
+tale about catching fresh-water oysters in the creek near his homestead.
+He seemed frightened of the traffic, frightened of the people.
+
+"I'll be very glad to get back," he said, as they stood outside the bank
+watching the street cars clang by. "I've lived in the back blocks so
+long that houses suffocate me and people all look like monstrosities.
+I'm glad to have seen you, though. I was very fond of Rose, as a boy."
+
+But he asked no questions about her or Andrew. He simply took for
+granted all that Marcella said, and was immensely interested in his
+sheep and his garden. He had recently imported a Chinese gardener who
+was going to do wonderful things.
+
+"I ought to take you somewhere to get lunch," he said doubtfully,
+looking at the crowds of people and then at his watch. "There's a train
+in one hour that will let me catch a connection at midnight."
+
+"Then I'll take you to the station," said Marcella promptly, and added
+on impulse, "I'm a bit sorry I'm not coming with you, though. I'd have
+liked to see my cousins--"
+
+"I don't suppose you'd like them much. They are nothing like Rose. I
+married an Australian, you know, and the girls are like her. They have
+had very little schooling. They are good girls, very good girls, but
+just a little hard," he sighed a little, and Marcella felt a quick pang
+of regret for his loneliness. Obvious though it was that he did not want
+her, she wished, for a moment, she could have gone with him to cheer his
+solitude.
+
+"But Ah Sing makes all the difference to me," he added hopefully. "He's
+growing strawberries, and next week, I hope, we shall see the asparagus
+peep through."
+
+So she left him on the platform to dream of his sheep and Ah Sing his
+only friend, while she dreamed of what next week would bring.
+
+She felt it was almost impossible to wait to tell Louis the good news;
+she wished she had arranged to meet him in the city; she wished all
+sorts of things as she wandered, solitary, round the streets, feeling
+very unsteady on her feet after so long on a buoyant floor, and
+expecting the pavement to rock and sway at every step. She went into the
+Post Office and despatched letters home. As she was going down the
+street again rather aimlessly she caught sight of Mrs. Hetherington and
+Mr. Peters coming out of a restaurant, and was reminded forcibly of
+Jimmy who would be alone in the drizzling rain on board.
+
+Buying a great box of chocolates, a basket of peaches and a clockwork
+train she hurried back to the ship, feeling very wealthy.
+
+It was a dreary day. Great Customs House buildings blotted out any
+possible view, reminding her very much of the ugliness of Tilbury. The
+rain drizzled down, warm rain that covered the walls of the cabins in
+streams of moisture; the sailors loading and unloading cargoes with loud
+creakings of donkey engines swore in sheer irritation; somewhere on the
+wharf sheep kept up an incessant and pitiful bleating all the day while
+sirens shrieked out in the stream. Jimmy was the only happy person on
+board, loading his train with chocolates and unloading them into his
+mouth after a tortuous trip along the dining table amongst glasses,
+knives and forks. It was the longest day Marcella had ever known; as the
+swift twilight passed, the passengers came aboard damp and damped; most
+of them were grumbling; all looked thoroughly pessimistic about
+Australia. The schoolmaster was one of the first to come solemnly along
+the deck under an umbrella. He had avoided Marcella rather pointedly
+lately, but he came and talked quite affably for a while, didactically
+contrasting Melbourne with Naples and Colombo.
+
+The _Oriana_ was to sail at eight o'clock; Marcella would not let
+herself be anxious; she had resolved that she must trust Louis now, and,
+knowing that he had scarcely any money and no friends, she could not
+imagine he would get into mischief. But as the last passengers came
+aboard and the first warning bell rang out, she began to grow cold with
+fear. The rain was pouring now in a sheet of water; she stood on deck in
+the green white glare of the arc lamps, which only lighted a
+circumscribed pool of radiance, and made the surrounding darkness
+blacker.
+
+The second bell went; she heard the engine-room telegraph ring and the
+ship began to vibrate to the throb of the engines. She was feeling
+choked with fear: a thousand apprehensions went through her mind: he had
+been run over and was dead: he had lost his way: he was ill in hospital,
+crying out for her.
+
+"Has your friend not come aboard?" asked the schoolmaster at her elbow.
+
+She shook her head. It was impossible to speak.
+
+"I suppose he has mistaken the time of sailing," said the schoolmaster
+soothingly.
+
+"Do you think I ought to go ashore to look for him?" she cried,
+articulate at last in her misery, and ready to take advice.
+
+"I think he should be able to take care of himself," he said carefully.
+
+"Ah, but he isn't. I must go and find him," she cried wildly. "What sort
+of hands will he get into if he's left to himself?"
+
+At that moment the last bell rang, and the boat began to move very
+slowly away from the wharf--perhaps a minute early. Knollys told
+Marcella afterwards that he guessed the captain had sailed early on
+purpose, for just at that moment he saw a group of four people dripping
+with rain rush on to the slippery boards of the jetty. They were four
+who had been pretty noticeable as law-breakers during the whole trip--at
+least, so the captain thought. Marcella gave a cry of hapless
+disappointment as she saw Louis with Ole Fred, the red-haired man and
+another. They were laughing wildly, and almost close enough to touch the
+rails of the ship.
+
+"Jump, Louis," she cried wildly.
+
+"Some flow's--for you, ole girl!" he cried, grinning loosely. "Mished
+bally boat! Catch, ole girl--flow's," and he threw a great bunch of
+bedraggled-looking flowers that had very obviously been dropped several
+times in the greasy mud. They fell helplessly into the water. Marcella
+could not stop to think of anything sensible. All she could see to do
+was to jump overboard to him and snatch him from the grinning men who
+were lurching at his side. But as she put her hand on the rail the
+schoolmaster drew her back.
+
+"Thass ri! Come on, ole girl! Marsh--Marshella--come an' sleep
+in--sh-sh-shtreets! Got no money, ole girl. Marsh--Marshella! _Parlez
+vous Franshay?_ Eh? Ah, _oui, oui_. Marsh-la! I wan' a woman! Beau-ful
+wi' shoulders--"
+
+"Oh--oh," she cried, burying her face in her hands in horror.
+
+"I should advise you to go below," said the schoolmaster's restrained
+voice.
+
+But she was irresistibly drawn to look at Louis, to plead with him with
+her eyes, though her voice refused to work. And at that moment his
+unsteady foothold on the streaming planks gave way, and he sat down
+heavily. There were six or eight feet of black water now between the
+ship and the quay, but Marcella could hear plainly the foolish laughter
+of the other three as they tried to lift him to his feet. Ole Fred fell
+beside him, smashing a bottle as he did so, while several cans of tinned
+stuff went rolling out of his arms into the water. Louis sat, laughing
+helplessly until he realized that Marcella's white face was vanishing
+and he kissed his hand to her solemnly.
+
+"Goo' ni' ole girl. Going fin' woman. Meet thee at Philippi! Ah, _oui,
+oui_! Marsh--ella! Look! Noblest Rom' of them all! Elements so
+mixshed--mixshed--can't stan' up, ole girl."
+
+She heard no more for the laughter of the others who were all sitting
+heaped together on the slippery boards now. Sick and aching she stood
+there in the rain, scarcely realizing when the schoolmaster wrapped his
+raincoat round her; she was wondering whether she would have been
+happier if she had known he was lying dead in the mortuary, or ill in
+the hospital instead of sitting, too drunk to move out in the rain on
+the quay. And suddenly she knew quite well. He had said love was a
+hunger, and she would understand some day that it was as tigerish a
+hunger as drink hunger or any other. In that moment of utter disgust and
+pain and despair she understood that that hunger had come to her though
+she did not yet comprehend it. It had taken hold of her now--she writhed
+at the indignity of the thought, but she knew quite well that she
+actually wanted his presence with her whether he were rude and
+overbearing, weak and appealing, superior and instructive or drunk and
+filthy. She simply hungered to have him about her. Always ready to
+query, to examine motives, she asked herself whether this were not,
+after all, merely a species of vanity in her that wanted to hold and
+save this helpless man who, it seemed, could not live for a day without
+her. And she got no answer to the question--the black water rushed past,
+chill and pitiless: the rain-swept sky was starless, the streaming decks
+deserted.
+
+At last she went below, and found it impossible to pass his cabin door.
+Everybody else was there, about the alleyways or in the saloon, safe and
+happy: only Louis had to bring himself to disaster every time. Opening
+his cabin door she went in. His things were all thrown about, his
+shaving tackle on the bunk, his pyjamas on the floor. Taking them up
+with hands that trembled she noticed that there were no buttons on them.
+The pathos of this was more than she could bear. On the floor were the
+two cups in which he had made tea before they reached port that morning.
+The teapot they had bought at Gibraltar lay overturned. Quite
+mechanically she cleaned up the tea-leaves and washed the cups. Then she
+could bear it no longer and, throwing herself on his bunk, she buried
+her face in his pillow and sobbed until she was exhausted.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+There were things to be endured the next few days. The purser came
+along, got Knollys to pack Louis's things and then sealed them. This
+meant that Marcella was shut away from all association with him; it
+seemed an unwarrantable interference with what she considered her
+property. The schoolmaster was surprisingly comforting and kind; he went
+out of his way to entertain her: Knollys brought unexpected tea in the
+morning in an attempt to make up for the loss of Louis. A young
+Scotsman, a sugar planter going out to the Islands, to whom she had
+talked until the fact that she was "another man's girl" had put a taboo
+upon her, insisted that she should, in the cold evenings on deck, wear
+his fur coat which he had brought rather unnecessarily; Jimmy tried to
+comfort her with apples. Mrs. Hetherington, whom the end of the voyage
+had left nervy and cross, said cattish things. She thought Marcella had
+shown very little tact in throwing herself at Louis; she advised her,
+with the next man, not to tire him out.
+
+"Oh, you're an idiot," cried Marcella, her eyes full of tears, and
+decided that this was an occasion for her father's favourite epithet. "A
+double-distilled idiot! How have you managed Mr. Peters except by never
+leaving him alone for a minute?"
+
+"I am a woman of the world, and understand men," she said airily. "I
+wove a net about him--in ways you would not understand, my child."
+
+"Don't want to," snapped Marcella. "I'm not a spider!"
+
+They anchored out in the stream in Sydney Harbour, going ashore in
+tenders. Marcella scanned the quay anxiously to find Louis, though
+Knollys told her that he would, most probably, be in by train to-morrow
+at noon. But she had an idea that he might have got through earlier, and
+hurried up to the General Post Office, which he had told her was his
+only address in the Colonies, to which his letters were sent. But it was
+a fruitless errand. Enquiry at the station told her that, as Knollys had
+said, the next train possible for Louis would be in at noon to-morrow.
+She turned back through the streets that were so extraordinarily like
+London in spite of Chinese, German and Italian names. As she passed the
+Post Office for the second time it occurred to her that there might be
+letters for her there, and found quite a bundle of them in a little
+pigeonhole high up. There was also a cablegram that had been waiting two
+days. She opened that first. It was extravagantly long; the name
+"Carlossie" at the head of it gave her a sickening pang of homesickness
+for a moment. She read:
+
+"Letter from Port Said arrived. Very anxious. Only way you treat drunkard
+is leave him alone. Impossible cure. Above all do not marry him or shall
+blame myself. Writing. Await letter I implore you.--Angus."
+
+It was extraordinary extravagance for Dr. Angus. She felt guilty at
+having worried him.
+
+"But I never mentioned marrying Louis! I simply said he was one of the
+passengers I was interested in."
+
+There was a letter from Aunt Janet written after the _Oriana_ had sailed
+and sent overland to Marseilles.
+
+"I certainly miss you," she wrote, "but I shall get over it in time, I
+expect. One gets very used to everything in time. I wonder if you will
+ever come back? I expect so. Wullie the Hunchback came along with fish
+for me twice. He misses you badly. You were always a great deal with
+him."
+
+Letters from Mrs. Mactavish and from Wullie, dictated to and written by
+Bessie, said that she would be back soon; standing under the portico of
+the Post Office, surrounded by the flower sellers with their bunches of
+exuberant waratah, feathery wattle and sweet, sober-looking boronia, she
+let her mind travel back to Lashnagar and the acrid smoke of the
+green-wood fires, the pungency of the fish, the sharp tang of the salt
+winds pushed the heavy perfume of flowers aside. In a moment the last
+six weeks of mad, unhappy dreaming and hoping vanished; she saw herself
+back again in her own sphere among her own people. She tried to picture
+Louis there, too, and realized horribly that he would never fit into the
+picture. Against Wullie and the doctor and her aunt he would look so
+vulgar, so pretentious, so tinsel-coloured. And how they would laugh at
+a man who could not master himself, a man who cried!
+
+"Why, I'm a snob! I was hurt when he thought I'd disgrace him by my bad
+manners. And now I'm being just as cruel!"
+
+Then she jerked herself away from Lashnagar and stood with the last
+letter in her hand, afraid to open it. It was postmarked Melbourne and
+had come in that morning. It was in Louis's writing, and gave her an
+acute sense of distress. She stood still by a shop window, looking into
+it blindly until she realized that she was looking at a crocodile and
+some snakes squirming about in tanks in a naturalist's window. The
+straggly writing reminded her of the ugly snakes: it told her that he
+was drunk more or less when the letter was written; she looked from the
+letter to the snakes. One of them crawled writhingly over the others,
+lifted its head and put out its tongue at her: shivering, she opened the
+letter.
+
+"MY OWN DARLING,
+
+"Wasn't it a sell? That damned captain's had a down on me all the trip. I
+reported him to the shipping company and I'm trying to get a free pass
+from them by rail. Otherwise I should come by the train that has brought
+this letter. By great luck I ran into an old girl I knew in New Zealand.
+She's a nurse who saved my life once when I was in hospital there. She's
+a dear--Oh quite old; don't get jealous, my pet! I'm staying the night
+at an hotel in Little Collins Street. The landlord has lent me a fiver,
+so don't worry about me. One thing I've to tell you--a terrible
+confession. I lost your father's ring in my haste the other night, but
+never mind. I'll buy you another. I hope your Uncle stumped up.
+Australia's a damnable place to be hard up in. Will you tip my stewards
+for me and see my things through the Customs? Give Knollys and the other
+chap ten shillings each. They haven't killed themselves on my behalf, or
+it would have been a quid. Tell them I sent it. I don't want them to
+know I'm hard up. If I hit up that railway pass I should be through
+before lunch on Saturday. And then, old girl, there'll be doings! I hear
+you can get hitched up in Sydney for about twenty-seven bob, without
+waiting for notices of any sort. Till then, all my love and all my
+thoughts are for you.
+
+"Your own Louis.
+
+"P.S. (Just like a woman) You'd better get something decent and not
+Scotch to wear if your uncle came down decently. And book us rooms at
+the Hotel Australia. They do you very well there."
+
+It was her first love letter. She felt, vaguely, that it lacked
+something though she did not quite know what. She hated the talk about
+money and about her uncle. She hated that he could borrow money so
+casually from a nurse who had been good to him. She wished that terrible
+hunger he had predicted had not happened to her. She knew, with absolute
+certainty, that Dr. Angus had gauged her fatal habit of conceited
+anxiety to help other people when he cabled to her not to marry a
+drunkard whom she had merely put to him as a hypothetical case. And she
+knew the doctor was inevitably right about the folly of marrying a man
+like Louis.
+
+"But he's wrong about there being no cure. When he is with me every
+minute and I can look after him as if he is my little baby, he won't be
+able to do it. I'll be a gaoler to him--I'll be his providence, his
+mother, his nurse, his doctor. Oh everything--I'll be what God was to
+father."
+
+Down on Circular Quay she felt she could not go aboard the Oriana yet.
+In spite of the unsteadiness of her feet it was very pleasant to be
+walking about in a new land, so, taking out Louis's letter again she
+went on rather blindly through the wharves, reading it. A Japanese boat
+was loading; smells of garlic and of spice and sandalwood were wafted to
+her from the holds and weaved into her thoughts of Louis; a little
+further along there was a crowd of stevedores clustered in the roadway
+round a violent smell of whisky. She turned away, sickened by her
+memories of that smell, with her father's ghost and Louis's at her side,
+but uncontrollable curiosity made her press on again. A great
+barrel--like the barrel at Lashnagar--had been broken by falling from
+the top storey out of the clutch of a derrick; there was a pool of
+blood, dreadful and bright in the roadway and men were lifting the
+crushed body of a man into an ambulance; quite close to the pool of
+blood was one of whisky that was running into the gutter. Two big,
+bronzed, blue-shirted men were kneeling beside it, dipping their hands
+in it and licking them greedily; trembling at the same time and looking
+sick with the fright of sudden death. From a warehouse near by came a
+heavy smell of decay--sheep skins were stored there in great, stiff
+bales. She went on, feeling as though horror happened wherever she went.
+But along by the sea wall it was very peaceful; only the soft lapping of
+the landlocked tide against the stone, the slow gliding of ferry boats,
+the lazy plash of oars and the metallic clanking in the naval dockyard
+on Garden Island came to her. On a man-of-war out in the stream the
+sailors were having a washing day; she could hear their cheery voices
+singing and laughing as they hung vests and shirts and socks among the
+rigging, threw soapy water at each other and skated about the decks on
+lumps of soap.
+
+A little further along by the wall was a great garden; she went in in a
+dream; unfamiliar flowers covered unfamiliar bushes with pink and
+scarlet snow; a bed of cactus looked like a nightmare of pincushions and
+tumours. She sat down beside them, under a low, gloomy leaved eucalyptus
+and dreamed. The champagne quality of the air, the sunlight dancing on
+the blue water, the great banks of dark green trees on the opposite
+shore, with prosperous, happy-looking little red houses nestling among
+them brought about an effect of well-being that soft weather and
+beautiful surroundings always gave her. She had, all her life, been able
+to escape from unhappiness by the mere physical effect of going into the
+sunshine and the wind--and then unhappiness and grief seemed impossible,
+incredible. Sitting there with half-closed eyes she dreamed of the
+future; the disgust of Melbourne had gone; the disillusionment of
+Louis's letter had gone, and yet she had very few delusions about what
+was going to happen to her.
+
+She wished she had the courage to run away now, to her uncle, or
+anywhere away from Louis. And she knew quite well that nothing on earth
+would make her leave him. She was beginning to realize, vaguely, what
+marriage to him might mean; she had flashing visions of him, drunk,
+dirty, foolish and--beastly. She shrunk from him fastidiously; even
+thinking of him made her heart thump in sheer horror; she felt that, to
+be shut up in a room with him when he was drunk would be an indignity, a
+disgust too horrible to contemplate. And he had hinted things that
+frightened her, about her "having her work cut out" about her "not
+realizing what she had taken on." Next minute the soft sunlight and the
+fluttering leaves made her think of him when he was not drunk, and she
+frowned; she so hated his air of superiority, his calm pushing aside of
+her opinions as not worth notice, his cool insistence on her inferiority
+as a woman.
+
+"Still, he's awfully clever," the dancing water told her. But she knew
+that he was not more clever than very many other people and that his
+cleverness had never been of any use except in getting money.
+
+"He's grown up--a big, grown up man, and you're only a girl," said the
+soft, exhilarating breeze that sang in her hair. And that thought
+allowed no answer, it was so flattering, so satisfying.
+
+"And--he needs me. He says he'll die without me," she told herself, and
+that was unanswerable.
+
+Suddenly she stood up and looked over the sea wall. There seemed to be
+two Louis in her hands, being weighed and, all at once, she felt a
+little helpless and leaned rather heavily against the sea wall.
+
+"It isn't a bit of use. I don't honestly believe any of these things are
+the real reason I'm going to marry him. I honestly believe I want to, so
+what's the good of lying to myself about it? But--oh what an idiot I am!
+It seems to me--there's something a bit degrading--in marrying a man
+like Louis--simply because--because--you _want_ to."
+
+She walked round and round the big eucalyptus as though she were in a
+cage. Then she came back and stood against the wall again, watching the
+sailors on the man-of-war with unseeing eyes. She felt hot and flushed
+and a little ashamed of herself. She felt that there was something
+rather disgraceful in wishing Louis were there to kiss her; something a
+little humiliating in longing so utterly that to-morrow might come when
+they could be together.
+
+"I never, never, never thought I'd be such an idiot! I thought I'd fall
+in love with a king, or something--Oh my goodness, what a mess!" Her
+father came into her mind, striding giant-like over Ben Grief in his
+shabby old tweeds; she frowned and bit her lips and told herself, in
+bewilderment, that if only Louis had been like him she would have
+married him without any feeling of humiliation. And she had the
+uncomfortable feeling that, had her father been alive, she would never
+have dared to marry Louis. Andrew would have put him in the sea, or
+something equally final and ignominious.
+
+She stared fixedly at the rippling water, with tight lips, and nodded
+her head at it.
+
+"Yes, it's perfectly disgusting. It's degrading--it's--it's beastly to
+be shutting myself up like this with a drunken man. I believe I'd be
+better dead--from a selfish point of view--"
+
+Next minute her eyes softened.
+
+"But think how eager he is--what a boy he is--like Jimmy! And how he
+trusts me not to let those awful miseries happen to him any more."
+
+She turned round, shook herself together and began to march back to the
+ship, her father's eyes shining through hers for a while.
+
+"Marcella Lashcairn," she said solemnly, "you're going to stop asking
+yourself rude questions for ever and ever, Amen! You haven't time to
+waste on introspection. You love him. That's a good thing, anyway. Never
+mind how you love him, never mind if it's a John the Baptist love or a
+mother love or a fever produced by the tropics, as Wullie said, you've
+to do things as best you can and understand them afterwards, just
+trusting that God will burn out all the beastliness of them in the end.
+And--" she added, as an afterthought, "If he gets drunk I'll shake the
+life out of him."
+
+If Louis had seen her just then he would probably have shied at marrying
+her.
+
+She went on board to a deserted ship, hating to stay ashore without
+Louis. Even the passengers who were going on to Brisbane had gone to
+sleep ashore. Knollys told her that Jimmy had cried desperately because
+he was being taken away from her, and that Mr. Peters was drunk in his
+grief at ending his acquaintanceship with Mrs. Hetherington. Later,
+seeing her standing lonely on deck, watching the lighted ferries go by,
+Knollys came up to her.
+
+"I beg your pardon, miss," he said, deferentially, "but it occurred to
+Jules and myself that you might possibly care to join us in a game of
+dominoes?" and, rather than appear unfriendly, she played with them for
+an hour. She was very glad when morning came.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+Marcella hurried to her field of Philippi that day. She went up to the
+station to meet Louis at half-past eleven in alternating moods of
+trembling softness and militancy, softness to welcome him, belligerency
+for Ole Fred and the gang, and strange gusts of helpless, blazing,
+hungry joy at the thought of getting him away from them, all to herself.
+Almost she wished she could snatch him from life itself. As the train
+came in she caught sight of him, laughing foolishly, dirty and
+dishevelled from the long journey. She ran down the clanging platform on
+feet of wind to meet him. He tumbled out of the carriage with half a
+dozen draggled men after him.
+
+"Oh--my dear," she cried, clinging to his hand, her face flushed, her
+eyes shining.
+
+He stared, his eyes glassy and pale, almost startled.
+
+"Hello, ole girl," he stammered. "G--g--good of you to mm--mm--meet me."
+
+He stood awkwardly, undecided, the others edging round him.
+
+"Louis, you'll never guess how awful it's been without you! I know what
+you meant, now, about not being able to do without each other--Uncle
+gave me the money--let's get away and talk--" The words all tumbled out
+breathlessly.
+
+He gazed at her again, as though he scarcely knew her.
+
+"These chaps have been awfully good to me," he said thickly. "We
+must--must--s-say good-bye. They s-sail for New Zealand
+this--safternoon."
+
+"That's good. Then say good-bye now, and come away. We've a lot to do."
+
+He stared moodily.
+
+"Look here, where's my baggage? Did you g-get it th-through the Customs
+for me?"
+
+She explained about it, and said that he must go aboard for it when the
+Oriana came alongside during the afternoon.
+
+"Right-o, then. I'll say good-bye. Wait a minute."
+
+He went down the platform and stood talking to the others for a few
+minutes. They looked towards her and laughed several times, and at last
+trooped off together.
+
+"I think a wash is indicated, don't you?" he said, looking at himself.
+"Lord, don't I want a drink! And don't I just want to be alone with you
+a few minutes! What shall we do? Did you book rooms?"
+
+"No. I was so busy thinking that I forgot. There's plenty of time. I'll
+tell you what. Let us go back to the boat and get your things, and then
+you can get cleaned up and--change--" she added hesitatingly, for he was
+still wearing the suit in which he had fallen on the jetty at Melbourne.
+It was splashed with mud and rain; it had been obviously slept in, and
+smelled of tobacco and spilled whisky.
+
+"Right. We'll have a cab and then we can talk on the way," he said. "By
+the way, I haven't a penny in the world. Broke to the wide! What did
+your uncle give you?"
+
+"Fifty pounds."
+
+"Lord! What a decent sort of uncle to have about. I haven't a relative
+who'd let me raise a fiver. Well, you'd better lend me some, old girl,
+till I get mine through."
+
+"You can have it all if you like," she said quickly. "I don't want it if
+I'm with you." She was thinking that he had told her not to let him have
+money; but if they were to be together all the time there could be no
+possible danger, and something told her that it would be good for him to
+be trusted with all her worldly goods.
+
+In the cab, as soon as it started its two-mile crawl, she handed it to
+him solemnly. He seemed to make an effort to pull himself together as he
+put the money into his notecase.
+
+"I say, Marcella," he jerked out, "you'll not let me out of your sight,
+will you, darling? It's no end risky, with all this money."
+
+"Poor little boy," she whispered softly. "You couldn't be naughty
+to-day, could you? Besides, you've me to look after now, as well as
+yourself. You've been here before. I've never been away from home in my
+life."
+
+He caught at her hand and held it tightly.
+
+"I'm just dying to kiss you, darling," he whispered. "Oh, I wish we
+needn't waste time on that bally rotten ship. I want us to get away from
+everywhere."
+
+On the ship they found that he could not get his things until the purser
+came aboard at seven o'clock in the evening, as he had them sealed up.
+But Knollys provided him with clothes brush and toilet apparatus while
+Marcella waited.
+
+"I've found out all about getting married," he explained when they got
+outside on the quay again. "It's frightfully simple. Knollys has just
+told me where the Registrar's place is. Lord! Marcella, do you feel
+frightened?"
+
+"No," she said, rather faintly.
+
+"It's worse for me than for you, after all. It's fun for a girl to get
+married. But I've all the ordeals to go through, facing the Registrar,
+buying the ring--"
+
+"Well, I'll do it," she said resignedly, "if you're frightened."
+
+But as they passed the first jeweller's shop he dived in suddenly
+without speaking to her. After a few minutes he emerged, his face
+flushed and damp, his hand shaky.
+
+"Look here, come up a side way somewhere, old thing! They've given me a
+chunk of cardboard with little holes in it. You've got to poke your
+finger in till you see which fits. Lord, I'm glad you don't get married
+more than once in a lifetime."
+
+"Don't you like it, Louis?" she asked, as she fitted her finger into the
+little holes and found that she took the smallest size ring. "I do. I
+think it's frightfully exciting."
+
+"I know you do. Women love getting married. They're cock of the walk on
+their wedding days, if they never are again. On her wedding day a woman
+is triumphant! She's making a public exhibition of the fact that she has
+achieved the aim of her life--she's landed a man!"
+
+"Louis!" she cried indignantly, and next minute decided to think that he
+was joking as they reached the jeweller's shop again. She had been
+looking at the jewellery in the window: it was her first peep at a
+jeweller's shop, and she thought how expensive everything was. She
+noticed the price of wedding rings. When Louis came out with the ring in
+a little box which he put into his pocket, he told her casually that it
+cost something three times more than the prices in the window.
+
+As they walked up the street he told her that he was tired to death,
+that he had not been to bed since the _Oriana_ left Melbourne.
+
+"I thought you stayed at an hotel that night," she said.
+
+"No, as a matter of fact, my pet, we got run in, all of us. I don't
+know, now, what we did when we found the boat had gone without us, but
+we made up our minds to paint the town red. So we got landed in the
+police's hands for the night and locked up."
+
+"Oh Louis!"
+
+"It was a great game! The funny old magistrate next morning was as
+solemn as a judge. He read us a lecture about upholding the prestige of
+the Motherland in a new country. Then he made us promise him faithfully
+not to have another drink as long as we were in the state of Victoria.
+We promised right enough, and kept it--because we knew we were leaving
+Victoria in a few hours. Ole Fred was as solemn as the judge himself
+about it. But when we got to Albury--that's on the borders, you know--my
+hat, how we mopped it! I haven't got over it yet. But after to-day I'm
+on the water-wagon, Marcella. Lord, here's the marriage shop!"
+
+It looked like a shop, with green wire shades over the glass windows,
+not at all a terrifying place. But Louis took off his hat, mopped his
+forehead and looked at her desperately.
+
+"Look here, old girl, I shall never get through this without a
+whisky-and-soda. I'm a stammering bundle of nerves. I'll never get our
+names down right unless I have a drink to give me a bit of Dutch
+courage. If it hadn't been for that Melbourne madness I'd have been all
+right. But look at me"--and he held out a trembling hand. "Marcella, for
+God's sake say you'll let me--"
+
+She felt she could not, to-day of all days, preach to him, but she could
+not trust herself to speak. She merely nodded her head, and without
+waiting another instant he darted into the nearest hotel, leaving her
+standing on the pavement. Her heart was aching, but every moment, every
+word he said made her all the more cussedly determined to see the thing
+through, and he certainly looked better when he came out ten minutes
+later.
+
+"That saved my life, darling," he said feelingly. "Now for it."
+
+He vanished behind the green windows and came back in a few minutes
+looking jubilant.
+
+"Nice, fatherly old chap. Asked me if I realized the gravity of the step
+I was taking and if you were twenty-one, because if you weren't I'd have
+to get the consent of the State Guardian. And by the way, Marcella, that
+reminds me. You'll simply have to do something to your hair."
+
+"Why?" she asked, flirting it over her shoulder to see what was wrong
+with it. It was tied very neatly with a big bow of tartan ribbon.
+
+"You'll have to do it up, somehow--stow it under your hat, don't you
+know--hairpins, old girl, smokers' best friends. You can't be married
+with your hair down, or they'll think it isn't respectable."
+
+"Oh," she said meekly.
+
+"By the way, I got the religion wrong. I simply couldn't think what you
+were, so I said an atheist, and he said as the Congregational clergyman
+hadn't a full house to-night we'd better go to him. Lord, what would the
+Mater say? She wouldn't think it legal unless you were married in church
+with the 'Voice that breathed o'er Eden' and a veil."
+
+"But--to-night?" she questioned.
+
+"Yes, half-past six. And I got our father's professions wrong. I
+couldn't remember what the Pater was for anything, so I said they were
+both sailors! Lord, I was in a funk--and at half-past six to-night I'll
+be married and done for. It's the biggest scream that ever was!"
+
+They went to a restaurant for lunch. She was very hungry; he could eat
+nothing. He ordered lemonade for her, adding something in a low tone to
+the waiter who went away smiling faintly. She thought he was drinking
+lemonade too, but he began to laugh a good deal, and his eyes glittered
+queerly all the time.
+
+She was a little overawed by the magnificence of the Hotel Australia
+when they went to book rooms; she wished very much that they could be at
+the farm; there were so many people about, so many servants quite
+inhumanly uninterested in them. At home Jean would have been fussing
+about, making them welcome.
+
+It was the queerest, most unromantic wedding. The streets were full of
+the Saturday night crowd of pleasure seekers. The chapel was next to a
+Chinese laundry; glancing in at the door through the steam she got a
+swift vision of two Chinamen ironing collars vigorously. Outside the
+chapel door stood a gawky-looking group--a young sailor, very fat and
+jolly-looking was being married to a rather elderly woman. Both had
+short white kid gloves that showed a little rim of red wrist; their
+friends were chaffing them unmercifully; the bride was giggling, the
+sailor looking imperturbable. Louis edged towards Marcella.
+
+"I don't want those two Chinks to see me," he whispered nervously.
+
+She stared at him.
+
+"I wish they'd open the door," whispered Marcella.
+
+"So do I. My hat, I wish Violet could come past. She'd kill herself with
+laughing. She was married at St. George's, Hanover Square."
+
+That conveyed nothing to Marcella. She was watching a German band
+composed of very fat, pink Germans who, on their way to their nightly
+street playing outside various theatres and restaurants, had noticed the
+group and scented a wedding. They began by playing the "Marseillaise"
+and made her laugh by the extreme earnestness of their expression; then
+they played the Lohengrin "Bridal March" and had only just reached the
+tenth bar when the chapel door opened with a tremendous squeaking and
+creaking. The conductor paused with his baton in mid beat and his mouth
+wide open as he saw his audience melting away inside the door. Marcella,
+laughing almost hysterically, whispered to Louis:
+
+"Give them a shilling or something. They look so unhappy!"
+
+"They're spying on me," he whispered, tossing them a coin which fell
+among them and received the conductor's blessing.
+
+Marcella and Louis sat on a bench in a Sunday-school classroom, looking
+at "Rebecca at the Well" and a zoological picture of the millennium
+while the sailor got married. Both were subdued suddenly. She found
+herself thinking that, if ever she had children, she would never let
+them go to such a dreary place as Sunday-school.
+
+"Isn't this awful?" she whispered at last. "People ought to be married
+on the tops of hills, or under trees. But it makes you feel solemn, and
+sort of good, doesn't it--even such a fearful place?"
+
+He nodded. They heard the sailor and the bride chattering suddenly and
+loudly in the next little room and guessed that they were married. A
+bent little woman--the chapel cleaner--came along and asked them where
+their witnesses were. Her dark eyes looked piercingly among grey,
+unbrushed hair; her hands were encrusted with much immersion in dirty
+water.
+
+"Witnesses?" said Louis anxiously.
+
+"Two witnesses," she said inexorably. "Haven't you got 'ny?"
+
+"We didn't know--" began Marcella. The old woman looked pleased.
+
+"Well, I was wondering if yous 'ud have me an' my boss. We often make a
+couple of bob like that."
+
+Louis nodded, and she shuffled off, appearing a few moments later with
+an old man who had evidently been waiting about for the chance of
+earning a few shillings.
+
+"It isn't a bit like Lochinvar," whispered Marcella, "or Jock of
+Hazeldean."
+
+"Poor old lady," he whispered, suddenly gentle.
+
+The two old people sat down on the form beside Louis, who edged a little
+closer to Marcella.
+
+"It's forty years since we was married, my boss and me," began the old
+woman. "Forty years--and brought up twelve--"
+
+"Buried six," mumbled the old man, shaking his head and wiping a watery
+eye on his coat sleeve.
+
+"I say, I feel no end of an ass, don't you?" whispered Louis. "Tell the
+old idiots to shut up."
+
+"Poor old things--forty years ago they thought it was all going to be so
+shining," she whispered.
+
+"It isn't as if he's had very good work," went on the old woman, "but
+you must take the rough with the smooth."
+
+A small old man with a black suit and a long white beard came to the
+door and beckoned them. They suddenly realized that he was the priest
+and followed him meekly.
+
+"I've often been the officiating surgeon," whispered Louis, giggling
+nervously, "but I never understood the point of view of the man on the
+operating table before."
+
+"Oh hush, Louis. I feel so solemn," whispered Marcella. She wished very
+much that Wullie was there. She felt that he would have understood how
+she felt as she repeated mechanically the words the old man told her;
+she did not hear them really. She was making an end of all her doubts of
+Louis; she knew, quite definitely, that whatever misery or degradation
+might come to her in the future, whatever wild or conceited or cussed or
+tropical thoughts had brought her to this dull little chapel to-night,
+God was quite surely making her His pathway, walking over her life with
+shining feet, burning out all the less fine things that did not belong
+to Him. She woke up to feel Louis fumbling with her hand to put the ring
+on; she had been miles and years away, through fires and waters of
+consecration.
+
+The old clergyman looked at her; he looked at Louis. The actual service
+according to the book was over. He gave a little sigh, turned to lead
+them to the vestry to sign their names, and then quite suddenly came
+back and asked them to kneel down. He talked to God very intimately
+about them. Marcella got the queer idea that he was talking to her all
+the time.
+
+"He must have thought a lot of you," whispered the old woman. "It isn't
+like him to make up a extry bit like that. Well, I'm sure I wish yous
+luck, both of you. Mind not let him have too much of his own way, my
+dear."
+
+Smiling she led away her toothless old man. Marcella handed Louis the
+marriage certificate, which he put in his pocket. Out in the street it
+was quite dark.
+
+"Phew, wasn't it an awful experience? Lord, we're married! Married! Do
+you really believe it, darling? And I haven't given you a kiss yet. I
+couldn't with those old dodderers about. Oh, Marcella, isn't it great?
+And isn't it a lark? But if anyone had told me I'd have got married in a
+tin tabernacle, slobbered over by a lot of Non-bally-conformists I'd
+have had hysterics. We'll simply have to tell the Mater and Violet!
+It'll be the joke of the century to them."
+
+She drew a deep breath.
+
+"Louis, can't we run right away into the Bush? I do wish we were at
+home on Ben Grief in the wind--the thought of that great, big hotel
+terrifies me. I feel sort of--like I used to feel when I went to church
+with mother on Easter Sundays, when everything was cool and white and
+smelt of lilies. Oh, Louis, I _do_ so love you!"
+
+Suddenly he stood still and looked at her.
+
+"Let's find a cab and get down to that bally boat for the baggage. Oh,
+bother the baggage! My darling, I want you alone. You stood there so
+quiet and still, looking just like a little girl being very, very good.
+Oh, my dear, you're a damned sight too good for me. Lord, I'll feed
+myself to the sharks in the harbour if ever I hurt you! What luck to
+find you! What amazing, gorgeous luck! Me--the waster, the unwanted, the
+do-nothing. Marcella--Lord, what's the use of words? I'm getting your
+trick of not being able to find words for what I mean. But you wait.
+Just you wait. There's a new Louis born to-night, in a funny little
+Nonconformist chapel. Look at him, girlie--can't you see he's
+different?"
+
+They found a cab and drove down to the quay again. Heedless of the
+people in the streets he kissed her again and again and did not stop
+talking for an instant.
+
+"You know, the very fact of being married alone is going to do wonders
+for me. It's going to give me a grip on things. I've been an outcast,
+dear--I've never known, when I've been this side of the world, where my
+next bed or my next meal is coming from. But to have a wife--and we'll
+have a home and everything--why, you can't think what it means."
+
+When they reached the quay he left Marcella in the cab, telling her he
+would only be two minutes. She watched him vanish in the shadow of the
+Customs shed. A moment later he was back.
+
+"I hate to leave you, even for a minute. I must have one more kiss. Oh,
+my darling, if you could only guess what it means to me to know that you
+love me, that you are waiting here for me. You've never been a throwout,
+a waster, or you'd realize just what you mean to me."
+
+Then he was gone, and she lay back, her eyes closed, dreaming. She felt
+very safe, very secure.
+
+It seemed a long time that he was gone, but she was accustomed to going
+thousands of miles in her dreams, only to find, wakening suddenly, that
+the clock had only measured five minutes. But at last she realized that
+it really was a long time. The horse began to paw and fidget; the
+driver, smoking a very reeking pipe, looked in at the window.
+
+"D'you think your boss'll be long?" he asked.
+
+"How long has he been?" she asked.
+
+"More'n half an hour. I've got some folks to take to the theatre, but
+I'm afraid I'll have to give them a miss if he don't hurry hisself."
+
+"I wonder if you'd go and see, please?" she asked doubtfully. "You see,
+we've only just been married to-day and I feel so silly--the people on
+board are sure to start making a big fuss if I go--"
+
+"Right-o, ma. I'll go," he said, and made off across the quay. He, too,
+was gone a long while; the horse got more fidgety, but at last he
+appeared, carrying two of Louis's bags.
+
+He grinned as he came up to the cab.
+
+"He's a lad!" he said genially. "Would make me stop an' wet the wedding.
+But it do seem hard to me for the bride to be out of all the fun. Why
+don't you go an' wet it, too, ma?"
+
+"Where is--my husband?" she said, stumbling over the word and feeling
+sick with fright.
+
+"Over there with his pals. They aren't half having a game. If I was you
+I'd go and rout him out! Not much use in a honeymoon when one's boozed
+and the other ain't. Now if you was to have a drop too--"
+
+She did not hear what he said. She did not stop to think of dignity or
+anything else; the same panic that had almost made her jump overboard at
+Melbourne sent her running across the quay, over the gangway on to the
+ship. The voices of the men guided her towards them on the silent ship.
+Louis was sitting on the hatchway; two champagne bottles were overturned
+beside him; he was just pouring whisky from a bottle into a tumbler as
+he saw her.
+
+His jaw dropped and he tried to stand up.
+
+"Here's your missus," laughed Ole Fred, who was leaning against him.
+
+Marcella looked from Louis to Fred.
+
+"So you didn't go to New Zealand?" said Marcella quietly, looking at him
+with blazing eyes. He blinked at her and tried to smile affably.
+
+"Of course I never thought you would, you horrible, wicked, idiotic old
+liar!" she said.
+
+Ole Fred looked thoroughly startled. Louis gazed at Marcella and then at
+him.
+
+"Now, ole man--I pu' it to you," said Ole Fred thickly. "Is tha' the
+sort of talk you le' your wife use to your bes' pals?"
+
+Louis shook his head reprovingly at her.
+
+"Marsh-shella! Naughty lil' girl! 'Pol'gize! Good Ole Fred! Bes' pal ev'
+man had, Mar-shella! Going t' Newze-eeelan'! All 'lone--way from
+'smother--way from Ole Country! Give him kish, ole girl--no
+ill-feeling--"
+
+Ole Fred got up unsteadily, grinning, and lurched towards her muttering,
+"No, no ill-feeling." She realized what he was going to do, and suddenly
+felt that she could not live any longer. But first--her father's temper
+came to her for a moment and she lost all responsibility. It was the
+first time the Lashcairn madness had seized her--and it was not the
+raging Berserk fury of her father. She stood quite still, very white.
+Ole Fred thought she was waiting passively for his kiss. But when he
+reached her on his unsteady feet she caught him by the shoulders, shook
+what little breath he had left out of him, and slid him deliberately
+along the deck. He was too surprised to resist effectively and the
+others had no idea what was in her mind. Reaching the rail of the ship,
+with the strength of madness she lifted him up--he was a thin little rat
+of a man--and dropped him calmly overboard. There was a heavy _plonk_
+and a rush of feet as Knollys, who had watched fascinated, ran down the
+companion-way with another man. She looked at her hands distastefully.
+
+"You're very foolish if you rescue him, Knollys," she said, with an air
+of giving impartial advice. "He's not a bit of good. I knew quite well
+I'd put some of these idiotic men in the sea before I'd done with them."
+
+She turned away towards Louis again. He cowered as she came near him.
+She smiled at him kindly and reassuringly.
+
+"Poor little boy! You needn't be frightened of Marcella. She doesn't
+often put wicked ole men in the sea," she said gently, holding out her
+hand to help him to his feet. Before she had put Fred in the sea she had
+felt it would be much better to go herself than live with Louis any
+more. But the flood of madness ebbed; Louis's cowering as she came near
+him seemed to her so appalling, so appealing that she could not leave
+him, and her hatred of Fred made her set her teeth and determine not to
+let him have Louis.
+
+No one spoke. The cab driver was looking at her with adoration in his
+eyes; looking round she guessed he was a friend.
+
+"Have you all our luggage?" she asked him.
+
+"Yes, ma--missus," he jerked, jumping and suddenly touching his hat--an
+epoch-making thing for an Australian to do.
+
+"Will you help me get my husband to the cab then, please?"
+
+"Aren't you going to wait and see if they fish him out, missus?" he
+asked hopefully, jerking his head over towards the companion-way, down
+which several sailors had vanished.
+
+"It's no use," she said impatiently. "He isn't a bit of good. If he's
+dead all the better. He's a very, very wicked man, you know. He's not
+just weak and wobbly. He is so wicked and dreadful that he laughs at
+people when they try to be good, and fights the goodness. Naturally it's
+better to put him in the sea. If it was a few hundred years ago they'd
+burn him as a devil," she nodded reassuringly to the cabman.
+
+"There are sharks in Sydney Harbour, too," she added reflectively.
+
+"Oh cripes!" cried the cabman reverently. "Come on then, boss," he
+added, turning to Louis. "Heave hold of my shoulder. If old monkey face
+is drowned your missus'll hear sharp enough from the police."
+
+Suddenly she ran back to the companion-way. She did not look to see
+where Ole Fred was. Keeping her eyes averted she called, "Good-bye,
+Knollys. Thank you for being so kind to me."
+
+Then she took Louis's hand without a word. He stood immovable.
+
+"Feel sh-shick, ole girl," he gasped.
+
+She stood still, feeling sick, too.
+
+"Go on, ma--I'll tend him," said the cabman. Marcella walked on with her
+head in the air, looking disgusted. After a few minutes she turned and
+saw the cabman struggling to drag him along. His legs lagged foolishly.
+
+"Can't walk, ole girl. Legs all cross-nibbed, ole girl," he moaned.
+
+"You're not to talk, Louis," she said calmly.
+
+"Talk? Talk? Can't talk. Parlez-vous Franshay, Marsh-shella? Voulez-vous
+coucher avec moi? Baisez-moi, ma petite--!"
+
+She faced him suddenly.
+
+"Look here, Louis. If you talk French one of us goes in the harbour. I'd
+rather it was me. Either that or I'll take my hands and choke you. _You_
+know they're strong hands--made in Scotland, Louis--bony, not a bit
+wobbly. Now what do you think?"
+
+He made a sudden effort, threw off the cabman's detaining hand, swayed a
+little and then steered a straight course for the cab, stumbling over
+the step and crawling in on his knees.
+
+"Isn't he a lad!" said the cabman admiringly. "Pair of lads, that's what
+you are! By cripes, you are! Where are you making for, missus?" His
+eyes, full of curiosity, were on the ship as a babble of voices rose.
+"Listen, they've got ole monkey-face! That's him singing out now. We'd
+better put our best leg forward for fear he comes after you."
+
+"If he does I shall put him back again," she said; "we were going to the
+Hotel Australia--but I don't think I'll take my husband there. I think
+they mightn't like him. Do you know anywhere else we could go--a
+house--where there are poor people who won't be rude to me about him?"
+
+He thought for a moment. Then his face brightened.
+
+"I know the very place, ma. It's quite near. The boss boozes, but Ma's a
+good sort. She'll have a room, sure. It's all among the Chows, if you
+don't mind that."
+
+"Chows--what are Chows?"
+
+"Chinese--Chinks--a good many white people won't live among them."
+
+"If they don't object to us, I'm sure I shall not to them."
+
+The next minute she was sitting beside Louis, but he was fast asleep.
+
+"Louis," she whispered, shaking him gently. He stirred and muttered, but
+could not waken. She stared at him in the passing light of the street
+lamps. He looked so helpless, so much at her mercy. Quite unexpectedly
+she leaned over and kissed the tip of his ear. Next minute she was
+sobbing uncontrollably, leaning against his arm.
+
+"Oh, why didn't I go in the water? I can't bear it--I can't! I'll never
+be able to go through with it! I'm making him no better--and no one can
+keep on being disappointed and disappointed and still keeping their
+faith. Even to-day, when I ought to have been so happy."
+
+She sat up suddenly, and turned away from Louis, holding out longing
+arms for the softness of her mother, the autocratic strength of her
+father. But she had to dry her eyes quickly because the cabman had
+stopped and was speaking through the window.
+
+"Here we are, ma," he said.
+
+She wrestled with her voice.
+
+"Do you mind--will you ask her, please? I've been crying, and I look
+such an idiot."
+
+"Right-o, ma. But don't bother about that. Mrs. King has had her share
+o' crying in her time. She won't think nothing of that."
+
+She realized that it was necessary to waken Louis as she heard the door
+open and a conversation between two people. A little figure of a woman
+came out to the cab and spoke to her.
+
+"It's all right, my dear," she said quietly. "I've got a top room. I'll
+be glad to let you have it."
+
+"It's very kind of you," said Marcella. "My husband is--rather--asleep.
+How on earth am I going to get him upstairs?"
+
+"I'll get some of my young fellows to carry him up for you," said Mrs.
+King. "Don't you fret about it now, dear. Men often have a drop too
+much, and it's better to take no notice provided they don't get too
+noisy or too ready with their fists."
+
+Marcella smiled faintly and stood stiff as a sentry while Mrs. King
+fetched out half a dozen of her lodgers who were playing cards in the
+kitchen. They carried Louis upstairs. He was so drugged that he did not
+waken.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+It was a bare room, up three flights of stairs. Marcella watched while
+the men carried him in and laid him on the bed. Mrs. King seemed
+inclined to stay and gossip in whispers, but, after thanking her, and
+saying they would talk to-morrow, Marcella shut the door and locked it.
+
+
+Then she looked round. There were three candles burning. With a little
+cry of superstitious fear she blew one out and pinched the wick. Through
+the two big windows she could see the ships in the harbour with rows of
+shining portholes: ferries were fussing to and fro like fiery water
+beetles. From the man-of-war she saw the winking Morse light signalling
+to the Heads. Trams clanged by in the distance; in a public-house near
+by men were singing and laughing. In the room Louis was snoring gustily.
+She turned from the open window and looked at him.
+
+"There! I'm married to him now," she said, and looked from him round the
+room. The walls were whitewashed: there was a good deal of blue in the
+make-up of the whitewash, which gave the room a very cold impression.
+There was a text "God Bless Our Home," adorned with a painted garland of
+holly, over the door. Above the mantelpiece, which was bare save for the
+two candles, was a Pears' Annual picture--Landseer's "Lion and Lioness,"
+fastened to the wall with tacks driven through little round buttons of
+scarlet flannel. There was a table covered with white oil-cloth on which
+stood a basin and jug and an old pink saucer. Two chairs leaned against
+the wall; one of them proved to have only three legs. A small mirror
+with mildew marks hung on the wall. Under one of the windows was a small
+table covered with a threadbare huckaback towel. The floor was bare
+except for a slice of brown carpet by the bed; Marcella liked the bare
+clean boards. They looked like the deck of a ship. She liked the room.
+Its clean bareness reminded her, a little, of rooms in the farm after
+the furniture had been sold.
+
+Her baggage lay in a forlorn heap with Louis's, all jumbled together
+just as the Customs Officers had left it. Taking off her shoes she put
+on her bedroom slippers and began to move about quietly, unpacking
+things, hanging her frocks on a row of pegs in the alcove, for there was
+no cupboard of any description--putting some books on the mantelpiece,
+her toilet things on the table. She was doing things in a dream, but it
+was a dream into which outside things penetrated, for when she had
+arranged the table beneath the window as a dressing-table it occurred to
+her that it would have to be used for meals and she packed her things
+away on the shelf above the row of pegs. Quite unthinkingly she had
+accepted this place as home; after the tiny cabin it did not seem very
+small; she was too mentally anxious to feel actual disadvantages. It was
+days before the cramping influence of four walls made her stifle and
+gasp for breath.
+
+She had a vague idea that Louis ought not to be wakened, but, looking at
+him, she saw that his neck was twisted uncomfortably and his collar
+cutting it. Raising him gently she tried to take his coat and collar
+off; he half wakened and made a weak motion as though to strike her. She
+noticed that his hands were very dirty.
+
+"Louis, you're so uncomfortable," she whispered. "Let me help you
+undress and get into bed."
+
+"Le' me lone," muttered Louis, lying heavily on her arm. "Aft' my
+blasted papers. Blast' German--even if you did play Marsh--laise!
+Marsh--laise! Marsh--shella!"
+
+His voice rose in an insistence of terror and she laid her face against
+his soothingly.
+
+Then she drew back, sickened by the smell of the various mixtures he had
+been drinking.
+
+"Ugh--he is horrible," she whispered, and bit her lip and frowned.
+
+Then his frightened eyes sought hers and she whispered softly.
+
+"Poor boy. Don't be so frightened. Marcella is here."
+
+"Marsh--Marcella," he said, making a desperate effort to sit up and look
+round. He looked at her, bewildered, at the room, and then his eyes
+focussed on the lion over the mantelpiece.
+
+"Bri'sh line, ole girl! Shtrength! I'm a line--fi' f'r you when we're
+married."
+
+"We are married, dear," she said. "Can't you remember it?"
+
+He stared at her again and dragged himself on to his elbow, looking into
+her face, his brain clearing rapidly. After a moment's desperate
+grasping for light he burst into tears.
+
+"Married! And drunk! Oh, my God, why did you give me that money, little
+girl?"
+
+She was crying, too, now, holding his damp, sticky hand.
+
+"I thought--if I trusted you--to-day--"
+
+"You mustn't trust me. Oh, damn it all, I'm a chunk of jelly!"
+
+"I thought--Oh Louis, if someone loved me and trusted me to make myself
+a musician, I'd do it somehow--and I've about as much music in me as a
+snail!" she cried passionately. "You know I trusted you! It seems to me
+that if you can't remember for ten minutes, and try to be kind the very
+hour we're married, the whole thing is hopeless--"
+
+He was getting rapidly sobered by his sense of shame, and looked at her
+with swimming eyes. He struggled off the bed, lurched a little and
+nearly fell.
+
+"Don't you see I'm not like you? We're intrinsically different. I might
+have been like you--once. It's too late now. If I'd been trusted before
+this thing gripped me so tight--Marcella, the thing that makes other
+people do hard things is missing in me! I've killed it by drinking and
+lying! I'm without moral sense, Marcella! Can't you see? I'm castrated
+in my mind! There's lots of people like that."
+
+"I don't understand you, Louis," she said weakly. "And--and I haven't
+got a dictionary to look up things." He was not listening to her. He
+went on raving.
+
+"You mustn't trust me! Do you hear? If a doctor got hold of me, he'd
+lock me up! And that would do no real good! Nobody wants to help a
+drunkard, nobody tells him how to get a hold on himself. They're
+barbarous to us--like they were to the lepers and the loonies in the
+Bible."
+
+"I'm not barbarous, Louis. Oh, my dear, my dear--you know I'd do
+anything."
+
+"No, but you're a fool and don't understand! Why can't some wise person
+do something for me? Marcella, you're a fool, I tell you. You don't
+know. You don't understand when I'm lying to you. God, why aren't you
+sharp enough--or dirty enough yourself--to see that I'm brain and bone,
+a liar? You didn't know that I was drinking champagne at lunch to-day,
+did you? Violet would have known! You didn't know I'd two flasks of
+whisky in my pockets, and kept getting rid of you a minute to have a
+swig, did you? If only you were a liar yourself, you'd understand that I
+was!"
+
+She sat back against the foot of the bed, feeling as though all her
+bones had melted away.
+
+"Then what _am_ I to do?" she said weakly, letting her hands drop. "I've
+no one to tell me but you."
+
+"And I lie to you! God knows what we're going to do. I've lied again
+about the money. I never wrote and told the Pater be damned to his
+money! There'll be two weeks waiting for me at the G.P.O. now. Why did
+you believe me?"
+
+"Louis--listen to me. I thought you were giving yourself a bad name and
+hanging yourself. I thought if you sponged out all thought of drink from
+your mind you'd be cured."
+
+There was a gloomy silence. At last he burst out impatiently.
+
+"Why aren't women taught elementary psychology before they get married?
+That is very good treatment for anyone who has a scrap of moral fibre in
+him. But I haven't. It won't work with me. You mustn't trust me. I'm a
+man with a castrated soul, Marcella. I've killed the active part of me
+by drinking and lying and slacking. You've got to treat me like a kid or
+a lunatic. I am one, really--there, don't look frightened, but it's
+true--Listen, old girl. Keep me locked up. I mean it, seriously. If I
+can be forcibly kept off the blasted stuff I'll get some sort of
+perspective. Now everything looks wobbly to me. Then, when I've got the
+drink out, you've to graft something on to me. Why in hell's name didn't
+I marry a girl who knew medicine? Don't you know that if a great chunk
+of skin is burnt off anyone, more is grafted on?"
+
+She nodded, her eyes wide with terror.
+
+"Well, I'm telling you this now honestly. Presently I'll be lying
+again. Marcella, I've to have will-power grafted on to me, and until I
+have, I'm going to stay in bed. See?"
+
+He was fumbling for his keys in his pockets. He gave them to her with
+trembling hands. There was a flask of whisky untouched in his pocket,
+and two empty ones. He threw them through the window regardless of
+passers-by.
+
+"Get out of here, Marcella, or look through the window a bit. I'm going
+to get undressed and lock up all my things. I'm a filthy object. You
+mustn't look at me till I've cleaned myself up. Then you must see that I
+stay in bed till this hunger goes off. If I do that every time it comes
+on--Lord, you always make me feel I want to wash myself in something
+very big and clean, like the sea."
+
+She turned to the glimmering window, feeling very humble. She felt that
+she had let him down, somehow, in not being more wise. And yet she knew
+very certainly that she was going to grope and grope now, hurting
+herself and him until she did know.
+
+"Why am I such a fool?" she asked, helplessly. The Morse lights winked
+at her from the flagship and she got back the memory of a night many
+years ago, when she had walked on Ben Grief with her mother just before
+she was too ill to walk out any more. They had seen a ship winking so
+that night, far out at sea, and it had passed silently. That night her
+mother had talked of God's Fools and how they were the world's wisest
+men.
+
+"If you are not very wise, darling," her mother had said, "God has a
+chance to use you better. It is so very hard for clever people to do
+things for God, humbly--which is the only way--because they are egotists
+wanting to show their own cleverness and not His all the time."
+
+That night she had told Marcella the story of Parsifal, the "pure fool"
+and how he, too big a fool to know his own name properly, had come to
+the court of the king who was too ill to do anything, God's work or
+man's.
+
+"You see, this king had been given the sacred Spear. So long as he had
+it no enemy could hurt him or his kingdom. But when he forgot, and
+pleased himself just for a moment, the enemy got the Spear and wounded
+him with it. No one could cure him till poor Parsifal came along--a
+poor simpleton who had been brought up in the desert. And the only
+reason he could win back the Spear, and cure the king, and bring back
+the symbol of God's Presence on earth again, was that he was so sorry
+for the king. He wanted so much to heal him that, whenever he got tired
+and sick, and whenever he got into temptations he was able to conquer
+them. It was his pity made him conquer where wiser people, more selfish
+and less loving, had failed."
+
+Marcella let the far-off, gentle voice sink into her mind, then. She saw
+herself very consciously as Parsifal; he, too, had been a fool. She felt
+she could take heart of grace from the fact that another fool had won
+through to healing and victory. When, presently, Louis's voice came to
+her, she turned with a swift vision of him as King Amfortas with the
+unstaunchable wound.
+
+He had washed and brushed his hair, and changed into pyjamas. He looked
+very pitiful, very ill. He was standing in the middle of the room with
+the two candles flicking in the light night breeze, making leaping
+shadows of him all over the walls.
+
+"My head's damn bad," he groaned. "It feels as if it's going to burst."
+
+He swayed and almost fell. She helped him over to the bed. He sunk on it
+with a sigh of relief.
+
+"I feel damn bad," he said again, and burst into tears.
+
+"Don't cry, Louis. I'm going to make you better now," she said, sitting
+on the edge of the bed and stroking his damp hair gently.
+
+"Light me a cig-rette--light me a cig-rette," he said, rapidly, shaking
+his hands impatiently. "In my coat--find my cigarette-holder. Be
+quick--be quick--There, I'm sorry, old girl. I felt so jumpy then. It
+seems as if there are faces watching me. Marcella--I'm sure there are
+Chinks about."
+
+"You're quite safe with Marcella," she said, soothingly, as if she were
+speaking to a child. He puffed at the cigarette but his hands shook so
+much that she had to hold it for him. It soothed him considerably. She
+registered that fact for future reference. Presently he threw the
+cigarette across the room into the grate and turned over.
+
+"Lord, I'm tired. Not had a decent night's sleep for centuries. Those
+damn bunks on the Oriana were so hard! Marcella--I want to go to sleep.
+If I don't get some sleep I shall go mad. Let me put my poor old head on
+your shoulder and go to sleep. I--dream--of your--white shoulders."
+
+She sat quite still, trembling a little until his heavy breathing told
+her that he was asleep. His hair, which he had soaked in water to make
+it lie straight, felt wet and cold on her neck. After a long while she
+laid his head on the pillow and stood up, stretching herself because she
+was so stiff.
+
+"Don't leave me," he murmured, without opening his eyes. She laid a cool
+hand on his head again. When she took it away he was fast asleep. She
+stood with her hands clasped behind her, watching him for a long time.
+Then she turned away with a sigh, to gaze through the window, trying to
+locate her position by the stars, only to be puzzled until she
+remembered that, for the last three weeks, the stars had been different
+from those that kept their courses above Lashnagar. She would not have
+felt so lonely had she been able to turn towards home as a Mahommedan
+turns towards Mecca. After awhile, chilled and hungry and aching in her
+throat, she turned back into the room.
+
+"Being married is horrible," she whispered. "I thought it was such an
+adventure."
+
+Going across to the bed she stood looking at him, her eyes filled with
+tears and, bending over him, she touched his forehead with her lips.
+
+"Oh, my dear, my dear," she whispered. "I wish you weren't drunk."
+
+He stirred, and his hand made a little, ineffectual movement towards
+her, and dropped again.
+
+Something in its weakness, its inadequacy, made her impatient; she felt
+it impossible to come near to anything so ineffectual as that futile
+hand and, taking the pillow from the other side of the bed, laid it on
+the floor. She started to undress and stopped sharp.
+
+"I can't get in my nightgown--in case he wakes up and sees me," she
+said. A moment later, rolled in her old plaid travelling rug she lay on
+the floor. It did not seem uncomfortable; it did not seem an
+extraordinary thing to her for a girl to go to sleep on the floor; she
+had her father to thank for immunity from small physical discomforts.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+Marcella was wakened several times during the night; she was cold and
+stiff, but only apprehended her discomfort vaguely as she listened to
+Louis muttering--mostly in French. Each time she spoke softly to him as
+she used to speak to her father when he was ill. To her he suddenly
+became an invalid; as the days went on she accepted the role of mother
+and nurse to him; only occasionally did a more normal love flame out,
+bewildering and enchanting as his kisses on the _Oriana_ had enchanted
+and bewildered her. She felt, often, contemptuous of a man who had to
+stay in bed and have his clothes locked up to save him from getting
+drunk; at the same time she admired him for attempting so drastic a
+cure. It was a wholly delightful experience to her to have money and
+spend it on buying things for him; she would, at this time, have been
+unrecognizable to Dr. Angus and Wullie; they would never have seen their
+rather dreamy, very boy-like, almost unembodied Marcella of Lashnagar in
+the Marcella of Sydney, with her alternate brooding maternal tenderness
+that guarded him as a baby, or with the melting softness of suddenly
+released passion. All her life she had been "saved up," dammed back,
+save for her inarticulate adoration of her mother, her heart-rending
+love of her father and her comradeship with Wullie and the doctor. Louis
+had opened the lock gates of her love and got the full sweep of the
+flood. But he gave nothing in return save the appeal of weakness, the
+rather disillusioning charm of discovery and novelty.
+
+For the first few weeks in Sydney she walked in an aura of passion
+strangely blended of the physical and the spiritual. She knew nothing
+about men; what she had seen on the ship made her class them as
+nuisances to be put in the sea out of hand. Her father was the only man
+she had known intimately before. Her father had been a weak man, and yet
+a tyrant and an autocrat. Logically, then, all men were tyrants and
+autocrats. The women in Sydney whom she saw in Mrs. King's kitchen,
+where she went to learn how to cook, talked much of their husbands,
+calling them "boss." Hence she meekly accepted Louis's autocratic
+orderings of her coming and going. Again, her father had been gripped,
+in the tentacles first of the whisky-cult, and later of the God-cult.
+Therefore, she reasoned, all men were so gripped by something. It was a
+pity that they were so gripped. It seemed to her that women must have
+been created to be soft cushions for men to fall upon, props to keep
+them up, nurses to minister to their weakness. She slowly came to
+realize that the age of heroes was dead--if it had ever been, outside
+the covers of story-books. It seemed that Siegfried no longer lived to
+slay dragons, that Andromeda would have to buckle on armour, slip her
+bonds and save her Perseus when he got into no end of entanglements on
+his way to rescue her. By degrees she came to think that men were
+children, to be humoured by being called "boss" or "hero" as the case
+may be. Reading the extraordinary assortment of books sent to her by the
+doctor, as time went on, it seemed to her that John the Baptist of
+to-day had gone aside from making straight the pathway of the Lord to
+lie in the tangles of Salome's hair. In all the great names she read
+there seemed to be a kink; some of them were under a cloud of drugs or
+drink; de Quincey hurt her terribly; sitting one day on the side of
+Louis's bed reading "John Barleycorn"--she had discovered Jack London in
+the "Cruise of the Snark" and loved his fine adventurousness--she felt
+that she could not bear to know a thing so fine, so joyous and so
+dashing as he should have so miserable a neurosis.
+
+Dr. Angus, among other things, sent her Kraill's Lendicott Trust Autumn
+lectures in the form of six little grey covered pamphlets. They were
+much coloured by recent inspiring German and American sex psychology.
+But she did not know that. She thought that they began, continued and
+ended in Kraill and, though she fell down in adoration before his
+uncanny wisdom, his cynicism made her miserable. They showed her
+humanity in chains; particularly did they show her man in chains; she
+read them all--six of them--in one afternoon and evening; students and
+trained scientists had taken them in doses of one a fortnight. Naturally
+she got mental indigestion that was not helped by the fact that, six to
+a dozen times on every page, she had to find the meaning of words in a
+dictionary she had bought to look up the meaning of Louis's remark the
+first night they were married. He was amused and tolerant about the
+dictionary. He seemed to think girls need not trouble to understand what
+they read. He was particularly superior about "little girls trying to
+take strong meat when they were at the milk-for-babes stage of
+development."
+
+"But you know, Louis," she said, looking up from her pamphlet with a
+perplexed frown, "He seems to think that if a man wants a cup of tea and
+a piece of bread and butter, it's sex!"
+
+"Well, so it is," said Louis calmly, puffing at his cigarette and
+watching her through the smoke. "Every hunger on earth is sex, right at
+bottom--every desire is generated by the sex force; drinking, love of
+parents and children, love of God, the artist's desire for beauty and to
+create beauty--just sex, old lady!"
+
+He laughed at her horrified face.
+
+"And you're such a bally little Puritan you think that's terrible, don't
+you?"
+
+She nodded, flushing.
+
+"You aren't a Puritan, really, Marcella," he said, watching her face.
+"It's your upbringing has made you a Puritan."
+
+"Louis," she burst out, "I'd rather be a Puritan, I think--and be all
+dead and dried up like Aunt Janet, than--than--what you call bowled
+over. I'd loathe that anything should have me; put me in chains; make me
+do things! Louis--" her voice dropped to a meek whisper, "it isn't
+that--that--beastly sort of thing makes me love you, is it? Makes me
+love to buy flowers and books for you, and make food for you, and be
+near you? Louis--just because you're a man and I'm a girl?"
+
+"Of course it is, you little silly," he said complacently.
+
+"Then I won't!" she cried hotly. "I won't do a thing because something
+inside me, over which I have no control, says I've got to! I hate it!
+It's a chain--I'm--a thing with a will, not just a bundle of instincts."
+
+He looked at her queerly, laughed a little and said nothing. She got the
+terrible idea that he knew more than she did, that something was weaving
+a net which all the while she thought was beautiful devotion when it was
+really something that was getting entangled in her arms and legs so that
+she could not move as she wished.
+
+"I resent it!" she cried, suddenly, starting up as though she would
+push the wall through and escape into the street. "I can't bear chains,
+Louis."
+
+"Then commit suicide," he said, stretching his hand out to her. "Even
+then some of these mad psychics say that that doesn't kill the thing
+you're escaping from. They say you die with an appetite and are so
+earthbound that you come to life again with it still about you. Lord, if
+I died now I'd come back and be the bung of a whisky barrel--and you--"
+
+"Louis, don't," she cried, staring up wildly. "It's beastly. Oh it's
+better not to understand anything at all! Do you know, I believe lots of
+people who stop to think resent these tyrannies of the body, only they
+don't mention it because it's the sort of thing that makes people blush!
+In this last lecture Professor Kraill says the same thing you told me
+once."
+
+"Considering I've already told you quite a million things--" he began in
+the tone one uses to a child. She broke in passionately, turning the
+pages of Number Six of the Lendicott Lectures swiftly.
+
+"Listen. This is what he says."
+
+_"We are loaded with sex and sex tradition, which the body and its
+burdens have imposed upon humanity. Poets have written and dreamed of
+the delights of wine, woman and song; priests and prophets have written
+and thundered and dreamed of the world, the flesh and the devil. It is
+only a difference of terminology. Poet, artist, priest and anchorite
+alike thought all the time of the tyranny of the body until it became a
+million-horse-power steam hammer crushing out his microscopic pin-head
+of a soul. To man, woman is still the siren tradition made her; she
+likes to be. She likes to think hers is 'the face that launched a
+thousand ships and fired the topless towers of Ilium.' She insists that
+man shall set out on his high adventure in quest of her. But he is
+beginning to see through her. He has her fate in the test-tube of his
+scientific laboratories to-day. She has refused to join him as a comrade
+in armour; she has preferred to remain the vehicle of reproduction, the
+prize of his play-times, his allurement, his passenger. Then let her
+remain so. Man is going to keep her under. Think what has been done in
+plastic surgery, what is being done in what I call plastic psychology!
+Think what selection has done in the breeding of lower forms of life.
+And then let woman tremble! If she is perpetually going to chain man in
+the meshes of her hair, the curves of her fingers, he is going to get
+rid of her--except as a thing for pleasure and for use. Most of the time
+he hugs his chains. One day he will get clear vision, realize that woman
+has got too much for him and--limit her! It is, to some extent, being
+done unconsciously already. Why is it a disgrace to be the mother of a
+girl-child in certain Oriental countries? Why do they drown girl-babies
+in the Ganges? It is simply that they realize the danger of this
+softness, this overlordship of women! Clearer thinking than we, they see
+the menace of femininity. We of the West will soon see that woman has
+been the passenger in the rather frail life-boat of the world. And in
+self defence we shall put her overboard before long--unless--unless--she
+takes an oar."_
+
+"Lord, he _does_ lap into them, doesn't he?" said Louis, gleefully.
+
+She frowned and pondered.
+
+"I think you are ungenerous, all of you," she said softly. "Men seem
+such unbalanced children to me. Wanting to put women overboard."
+
+She looked at Louis, and they both broke into an uncontrollable fit of
+laughter as they recalled that that was exactly what she had literally
+done with an annoying man.
+
+"Perhaps we're all ungenerous," she said presently. "I believe we are
+ungenerous towards the thing that chains us. It's only natural. But I
+don't think that you or the author of 'John Barleycorn' or poor de
+Quincey ought really to put drugs and drink and all that out of the
+world at all. You ought to live with them in the world, and not let them
+chain you. Don't you think so? And--poor Professor Kraill! Isn't he
+wistful about the stuffiness of women's hair? Oh Louis, do you know what
+it reminds me of?"
+
+He lit a cigarette, watching her with amused tolerance.
+
+"Knollys put a horrible sticky fly-paper in the stewards' pantry one
+day. I was looking at it, and wishing flies needn't be made at all. Then
+I wished I could let the poor things all loose, no matter how horrible
+they are. There was one big bluebottle that had got stuck there on his
+back with his wings in the sticky stuff. He struggled and struggled
+till--Oh, horrible!--his wings came off. Then he crawled and crawled,
+over other dead flies till he got to the edge of the paper. And he went
+all wobbly and horrible because nearly all his legs had got pulled off."
+
+"Lord, what a mind you've got!" he said.
+
+"Can't you see that's how people are--most of them. Oh, poor things! If
+I'd stopped to think I'd have been sorry for Ole Fred instead of putting
+him in the sea for the sharks."
+
+He looked at her amusedly again, and then at the kettle boiling on the
+little spirit-stove.
+
+"I say, old lady, theories are all very nice--after tea," he suggested.
+
+"Oh, is it tea time?" she said, with a little sigh. Then, brightening,
+she hummed a little tune all wrong as she cut bread and butter, laid a
+little spray of bush roses round his plate and went down to the kitchen
+to ask Mrs. King's advice about what treatment she could give to eggs to
+make them nicer than usual for him.
+
+At the door she turned back.
+
+"You know, Louis--they've such lovely, shining wings--all beautiful
+colours--"
+
+"What?" he said. He had already dismissed the "silly little girl's"
+arguments from his mind.
+
+"I'm thinking about people and bluebottles! Lovely iridescent wings all
+sploshed down in sticky stuff. And swift legs--it seems such a pity to
+cripple them so that they can't fly or run."
+
+"I _do_ so want my tea," he said, pretending to groan.
+
+She ran down the stairs with a laugh.
+
+That day she discovered the possibilities of the roof.
+
+At the end of the landing on which their big top room opened was a short
+iron ladder. She decided to explore and, climbing up the iron ladder,
+pushed up the trapdoor. A cry of delight escaped her as she thrust her
+head through the opening. It was a great, flat roof, separated from the
+next ones by low copings of stone work, flat topped and about two feet
+high. The town, as she climbed out and stood on the roof, lay beneath
+her like a plan. People looked like flies in the streets, the tramcars
+like accelerated caterpillars. The water of the harbour was still and
+smooth and as incredibly blue as the water she had seen Mrs. King using
+in her laundry work that morning. Wharves or trees ran right down into
+the blueness. The big ships lying at anchor made her heart beat fast
+with their clean beauty and romance; the bare, clean roofs running along
+for perhaps fifty houses gave her a breath of freedom that brought back
+Lashnagar and Ben Grief. She thought, with a pang of pity, about Louis,
+the product of suburban London, chained to streets and houses almost all
+his boyhood, knowing nothing of the scourge of the winds, the courage of
+wide, high places. She tumbled down the ladder, her eyes bright.
+
+"Louis--Oh Louis, come up on the roof! It's perfectly beautiful! I've
+been so worried about you shut up here like this, and I've felt so
+choked myself with this one room. But up there I'll make you shut your
+eyes, and I'll tell you all about Ben Grief, and you'll think you're
+there. I'll make you hear the curlews and the gulls and see Jock and
+Tammas come in with the boats."
+
+"But on the roof!" he protested. "Whatever next?"
+
+"Oh, come and see. You'll love it," she urged and, though he said it was
+"a beastly fag," she got him at last into his dressing-gown and slippers
+and sitting beside her on the coping.
+
+She was happier than she had been for months; she felt that there was
+enough breath up here for her, and not even his laughing at her for
+being "such a kid" could damp her enjoyment. Presently a new idea
+occurred to her.
+
+"Let's sleep up here!" she cried, and once again over-ruled his
+objections, and dragged up the mattress and blankets.
+
+The shadows of the chimneys were long across the roofs as she laid the
+mattress down by the coping. The day had been hot with the clear, bright
+heat of early summer. They sat on the mattress, smoking--an
+accomplishment Marcella had learnt from him and practised rather
+tentatively. She talked to him of Lashnagar, pouring into his ears
+legend after legend of her people, until she came to the tale of the
+spaewife and the coming of the ruin upon Lashnagar.
+
+"Do you mean to have the cheek to say this is an ancestor of yours?" he
+asked as, with glowing eyes and quickened breaths, she told him of the
+twins born on Flodden Field and wrapt in their foemen's trappings. Had
+he been less self-centred he could not have tried to hurt her by making
+fun of her legends.
+
+"Yes. She is my great, great, goodness knows how great grandmother. I'm
+rather proud of her, but she takes some living up to. I often feel I
+disappoint her. But if ever I feel flabby or lazy or tired of hard
+things I switch my mind on to her. Fancy her, sick and weak, tramping
+after her man to the battle, and then leaving him dead as she took his
+heirs and his shattered pennant back to the ruins of his home. I feel
+ashamed of myself for ever daring to think I'm ill-used when I think of
+my spaewife grandmother! We're not brave and hard like that now--But I'd
+rather like to get her here to settle you and people who talk about
+'limiting' women. She wasn't much of a passenger."
+
+"Oh, that witch story comes in lots of mythologies, and old family
+histories!" he said, teasingly. "I don't suppose she ever existed at
+all, really, or if she did it was because she'd been tarred and
+feathered and took refuge at that out of the world show because she was
+afraid of being burnt."
+
+"Afraid!" she cried, and began to tingle all over just as she had
+tingled when Mactavish played the pipes at her father's funeral. Just
+for an instant she wanted to push Louis over the roof, hear him smash
+far below on the street for daring to say the spaewife was afraid. Then,
+just as swiftly, she remembered that he was weak and must not be annoyed
+because he could not stand it. It came to her in a flash how impossible
+it was for him, with no pride but self-love, no courage but Dutch
+courage, to understand fearlessness and endurance. Her tingling smart of
+madness and anger passed, leaving her penitent and pitying. She put her
+arm round his neck and kissed him behind his ear. He, not knowing the
+swift processes of her thought, imagined that he had "knocked a bit of
+the silliness out of her" effectively.
+
+"Poor little boy," she whispered, and he liked it.
+
+The waters of the harbour began to deepen to indigo: the sun went down
+behind the roofs of the city at their side. There was a faint faraway
+crackling in the air as of straw and twigs burning in a fierce fire;
+the sky was flooded with streamers of mauve and green, gold and rosy
+light that flickered over the bed of the sinking sun for an hour or more
+instead of leaving the sky suddenly grey as it usually was after the
+rapid twilight. The sundown bugle called down the flag on the masthead
+of the flagship, and the headlights twinkled out. Marcella and Louis
+grew very quiet as the streets quietened and only an occasional car
+clanged by in George Street, an occasional band of singing sailors went
+back rollicking down the street, a solitary ferry glided along in the
+water, with brilliant reflections and blaring German band. She crept a
+little closer to him; when he did not speak she forgot, for the while,
+the chasm between them. It is so easy not to criticize anything seen
+through veils of glamour. People socially, spiritually and mentally
+worlds apart can love violently for a while when there is physical
+attraction. And they are very happy, breathlessly, feverishly happy.
+Then they wake up with a memory of mutual giving-way that embitters and
+humiliates when the inevitable longing for something more stable than
+softness and breathlessness sets in.
+
+Louis had not been drunk for three weeks; so many things had happened to
+her, new things, charming things, adorable things and sad things since
+they left the ship that she had almost sponged the memory of it from her
+mind. The faculty that had been forced upon her in self defence during
+her childhood, of forgetting hunger, hardness and repression the moment
+she left the house and got out on to the wild hillside in the sun and
+the wind came to her now with a kind of rapture. She had never, in her
+childhood, dared to resent anything that hurt herself. This spirit of
+non-resentment had become a habit of mind with her. She forgot--if she
+ever realized--that Louis had hurt her, in the soft beauty of the
+aurora, the silent fall of the night, the exhilaration of the roof with
+its loneliness, its romance.
+
+After awhile she went down the ladder and brought up grapes and
+granadillas, and four candles. Louis looked disappointed: he would have
+preferred mutton for supper, but for once said nothing as she stuck two
+candles on the coping and two at the foot of the mattress, and lighted
+them. They burnt unnickering in the windless, blue air.
+
+It was the setting of romance. Dreams, play-acting came back. Breaking
+off a bunch of grapes for Louis she said:
+
+"This is a roof garden in Babylon. You're a king. Oh no, it's Jerusalem.
+I'm Bethsaibe, bathing on the roof and you're King David. You've got to
+fall in love with me."
+
+Louis was too self-centred, too introspective to make love to anyone; it
+was only alcohol that released unconscious longings in him: he had
+never, consciously, loved anything on earth: his desperate pleadings
+with Marcella on the ship had been pleadings for a mother, a caretaker
+rather than for a lover. His gross suggestions when he was drunk--the
+relics of his boyish first sex adventure--she did not understand. Nor
+did she understand why, when he had lain drunk and asleep that first
+night in the room below, she had looked at him feeling choked to tears;
+why she sat up at night watching him as he slept, vaguely discomforted
+and distressed; why she looked at him with blinded eyes. Had Louis not
+roused first her mother love to guard his helplessness, he would never
+have got into close enough touch with her to rouse the physical passion
+which might have thus slept on for long years. All her frowning,
+bewildered self-analysis could not explain the whirlpool of sensations
+into which she had fallen, which alternately buffeted her with vague
+unhappiness and drew her along to ecstasies. She did not realize that
+all her dreams of a splendid Lover had become mixed up with the family
+legend about "taking the man she needed" and had crystallized round
+Louis, the first man to waken physical passion for her.
+
+In a warm rapture up here on the house-top in the still night air her
+conscious mind went to sleep; she lived her dreams. And Louis did not
+understand; out of the reach of temptation for three weeks, he felt very
+strong; her tenderness, her passionate love flattered him: he became a
+very fine fellow indeed in his own eyes as he lay there, half asleep,
+under the silver and purple of the midnight sky. He must be a very fine
+fellow--so he argued--if she could love him. She had won his reluctant
+admiration long before she had wakened his love.
+
+"She's a queer stick," he told himself drowsily, "and a perfect darling.
+Lord, the way she shook the life out of me that night at Naples! Just
+because I mentioned her bally old father. I believe--I really believe,
+in spite of her being in the steerage--that she's pretty well born! And
+the way she stuck Ole Fred in the water without turning a hair. And got
+fifty quid out of her uncle as easy as falling off a log! Lord, I've
+never raised more than a fiver out of an uncle in my life--and that on a
+birthday."
+
+He felt for her hand and held it drowsily. It was a very cool, hard
+hand--not in the least like Violet's pretty little product of creams and
+manicure.
+
+"She's _some_ girl," he thought. "And what a blazing wonder that she'll
+look at me. Yet I can twist her round my little finger--on occasions
+like to-night."
+
+By a very humanly understandable metempsychosis she became just a little
+less shining because more reachable; some of her shine transferred to
+him. His conception of the whole thing was physical; hers was not
+consciously physical at all. But as she lay, long after he was asleep,
+watching the candles fade one by one, leaving a fainter purple in the
+sky, she felt vaguely disappointed; all this business of love-making
+seemed to mean so much less to Louis than it did to her; he did not take
+it seriously, or rather he did not make it the high feast she found it.
+He could be flippant about it. For her it broke down every barrier,
+every reservation. Louis was able to come down immediately from ecstasy
+to everyday things. This, she argued, meant that he had not flown so
+very high after all. He was able to make a laughing, half-embarrassed
+remark to the effect that he hoped no one else was on the roofs round
+about. She would not have cared if everyone in Sydney was on the roofs.
+For her no one existed just then but Louis. That had jarred a little.
+Then there were no more cigarettes and he had, quite petulantly,
+complained of the trouble of going down into the room for a new tin. She
+had gone cheerfully, as she would have fetched things for her father.
+She did not realize that, by waiting on his whims, she was lowering
+herself in his esteem. He had taken the cigarettes without a word of
+thanks. It was only when she lay awake for hours afterwards, with a
+vague discomfort that was certainly not physical, that she remembered
+and was amazed that he could have remembered cigarettes just then. It
+did not square at all with her Lover dream. And the Southern Cross as
+she lay with unblinking eyes staring into the great, still dome above
+her, was disappointing. She had heard so much about it; she had thought
+it would be a group of flaming suns in the night sky. And its separate
+pointers were not even so big and bright as Venus. She felt, somehow,
+that she had been cheated a little; and immediately told herself that it
+was not so really--either she had expected too much, or else she was not
+clever enough to see what was really there all the time.
+
+She did not go to sleep all the night. It was at four o'clock that she
+crept quietly from underneath the blankets and sat on the coping,
+perilously near the edge of the outer wall, with the dawn wind from the
+sea blowing deliciously cold through her thin nightgown. Daybreak came
+like the rolling up of a blind; thoughts and memories chased each other
+in her mind. She looked across at Louis, fast asleep. Her impulse told
+her to waken and ask him to kiss her good morning. And then she stopped
+dead. Her feet were carrying her, very uncomfortably, over the rusted
+corrugated iron of the roof towards him. Her brain signalled to them to
+stop, and they would not! She felt herself being carried by them quite
+against her will, and in another moment she knew that her lips would be
+on his eyes, kissing him to waken him. And at that moment her foot
+caught on a nail that the weathering of the iron had exposed. She gave a
+little, repressed cry of pain and saw her foot bleeding.
+
+She sat down exactly where she was; her foot went on bleeding, but she
+did not notice it. The slight pain had done its work in jerking her to
+an awareness of her body.
+
+"Oh, my goodness," she said out aloud, "I'm caught! I'm chained! Louis
+was right when he said I didn't understand about these hungers. Oh, my
+goodness, it's like Louis's feet take him to a whisky bottle. My feet
+were simply coolly walking me off to waken him up."
+
+She sat motionless, scarcely breathing. Her heart began to thump
+unpleasantly and she felt a flush tingling down to her feet and to the
+tips of her fingers.
+
+"If I hadn't torn my foot then I'd have given way to that blaze--and
+each time you give way to a thing it chains you a bit more! I'd never
+have had a chance to sit cool and think it out, because I'd have
+forgotten, before I knew where I was, that it needed thinking out at
+all. I'd have wakened him by now."
+
+This jerked her, wakened her, widened her. Swiftly she was able to see
+that Louis, on his whisky chase, de Quincy on his opium chase, King
+David, Solomon, Nelson, Byron and Kraill on their woman chase were not
+perhaps so fortunate as to get a nail jabbed in their feet, pulling them
+up sharp and giving them time to think.
+
+"There I've been blaming them a bit--pitying them a lot! Heavens, I was
+_superior_!" she said.
+
+The sun came up out of the sea and looked at her.
+
+"Because I didn't know," she told it. "I was superior! Because I'd never
+felt the pull of a chain."
+
+She thought the sun took on a horribly knowing, superior expression.
+
+Another rather shaking thought came. Since her recollection of the
+blameless fool that first night in Sydney she had sought the bookshops
+for the text of "Parsifal" and had found it, a ragged copy for twopence,
+in a second-hand bookshop near the station. She had been puzzled when
+Parsifal, trying to free himself from the enchantment of the
+witch-woman's embrace, had suddenly been confronted by her exultant:
+
+"And so then, with my kiss,
+The world's heart have I shewn thee?
+In my soft arms enfolded
+Like to a god thou'llt deem thee."
+
+"Yes, that's it," she cried. "Oh, you old sun, listen to the
+speciousness of it all! Listen--I mustn't let Louis hear, because he'd
+be hurt. He isn't my Lover, my Knight at all. He's just the same thing
+to me as women used to be to the Knights--he's something to rescue, to
+deliver from bondage. And--just like those beautiful, soft women,
+he's--he's a sort of seduction to me. Oh--it's horrible!"
+
+She waited a minute tensely. Thought always came to her in flashes.
+
+"And so are all men. They're all in bondage."
+
+The sun seemed to have a big, fat, knowing face. One of his eyes winked
+at her.
+
+"Here am I getting myself into a chain that's going to drag at me every
+time I'm fighting for him. This--this softness, this love-making and all
+the thrill of it--it's going to make holes in my armour and stuff them
+up with--_crepe de Chine_!"
+
+She had seen _crepe de Chine_ yesterday for the first time; Mrs. King
+was making a blouse of it. Marcella had loved its fine sheen and
+delicacy. But it did not seem much use as armour.
+
+"Here's this thing happened to wake me up, give me insight. There is the
+plausibleness of it, the temptation of it. I _know_ last night taught me
+things, millions of things. It promises to teach me more each time it's
+repeated. And each time it's repeated I get more and more _crepe de
+Chine_ patches on my armour. I get bowled over like a ninepin. How am I
+to know I'll not be permanently bowled over--till I get--like--like--" A
+long line of those people she had pitied for their weakness came to her.
+"I nearly was this morning. If it hadn't been for that nice kind nail in
+the roof! Wagner knew all about this when he made the witch-woman
+realize that her kiss had unlocked all the world's wisdom for the fool.
+And one can't help wondering how it is that a thing so natural and
+beautiful can be bad for one--"
+
+She began to bite her thumb-nail fiercely and stopped, disgusted with
+herself, as she realized how she had often condemned Louis for exactly
+the same habit when he got perplexed.
+
+"You see!" she told the sun desperately, "even a little thing like that!
+I do think we're censorious and cruel to each other."
+
+She began to walk about the roof. Her foot was bleeding neglected; at
+every step she left a little, red print unnoticed.
+
+"Of course it's natural and beautiful--and abominably instructive! Where
+the wrong comes in is that it gets you down, beats you, takes hold of
+you. Eating bread would be wrong if you made an orgy of it. So would
+religion, or anything. All this time I've been posing as something so
+splendid, wanting to save Louis from Drink; I've been deceiving myself.
+I've been in love with him. And it's the sort of love that would soon
+degenerate into an orgy--if I let it!"
+
+She felt that she was so full of ideas that she was getting muddled,
+but one thing was very clear.
+
+"I wonder if that queer remark in Genesis, 'Adam knew Eve, his wife,'
+means this strange understanding that has happened to me to-night? I've
+often been puzzled by what it could mean. Did it mean that he became
+aware, in a flash as I did, of what this sex business might mean in his
+life--how it might be a chain to him as it has been to so many people?
+It's queer--it's like waking up from a dream that's been over you all
+your life, and suddenly seeing things very clear. I see them clear now."
+She looked out across the shining sea. "Either it can be a chain, or it
+can be a Spear of Deliverance as it was to Parsifal."
+
+She looked from the sea to Louis, unconscious, untroubled by problems
+now that she had taken his burdens upon herself. She realized that she
+had even more battles to fight now. She had her own; there was an enemy
+within her own camp. Even as she stood there watching him her nails
+gripped the stone coping fiercely because half of her was wanting last
+night's tornado back again.
+
+"No, I won't put up with chains. I'll carry a Spear," she said, and
+tumbled down the ladder to dress ... tumbled because her feet were
+unsteady.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+As she was dressing she became aware of sounds of violent scrubbing
+going on in the next room--she had often heard such sounds almost before
+dawn. She had noticed, too, the almost painful cleanliness of the rather
+bare, big house. She knew that no servants were kept; she never saw Mrs.
+King scrubbing; most of her time was spent in cooking and washing
+clothes. Mr. King had never, yet, put in an appearance.
+
+Presently the scrubbing stopped and shambling steps came along the
+landing as someone slopped along, dragging his slippers into which he
+had merely thrust his toes. There was a scratching sort of tap at the
+door. Marcella opened it quickly.
+
+A man stood in the doorway, a man with bent shoulders, grey hair and
+bent back. His face was yellow and unhealthy-looking; his eyes were
+filmed and colourless. He seemed half asleep as he looked round over his
+shoulder suspiciously.
+
+"Missus--have you got a tray bit?" he whispered.
+
+"What's that?" she asked.
+
+"A tray bit, missus--just thruppence--a mouldy thruppence to get a
+livener."
+
+"Oh, you want some money?" she said hurriedly, and realizing the
+impossibility of offering a grown up man threepence gave him half a
+crown. He shambled off without a word and she saw no more of him. Later,
+when Louis came down from the roof, he slid along the landing on the
+soap the scrubber had left there. When Marcella went down to the kitchen
+where Mrs. King was already busy ironing, the mystery was explained.
+
+"My boss has gone off for the day," she complained. "I went up into
+Dutch Frank's room just now, and found the pail of water left there!
+He'd hardly begun his scrubbing. I don't know where he got his money
+from."
+
+"Was _that_ your husband?" cried Marcella, stopping short in her
+toast-making.
+
+"Oh, he's bin at you, has he?" said Mrs. King resignedly.
+
+"I gave him--a little money. I didn't know he was your husband," said
+Marcella apologetically.
+
+"I ought to have warned you, but there, you can't think of every
+blooming thing at once. Don't you worry, kid. I'm not blaming you. He
+would have been at you sooner or later. It's all the same in the long
+run, but it means I've got to scrub the floors. And my back's that
+bad--I do suffer with my back something cruel."
+
+"Where has he gone, then?"
+
+"Oh, beer-bumming. He goes off every day, and comes in every night after
+closing time, shikkered up."
+
+"I've never seen him before," ventured Marcella.
+
+"He's a lad, Bob is. We had a bonser hotel once, kid--a tied house, you
+know. He was manager, on'y he drunk us out of it. So then I took on this
+place on my own--got the furniture hire system, else he'd raise money on
+it, and sell it up under me. He's no damn good to me, you know,
+kid--only I do manage to get a bit of scrubbing out of him, of a
+morning."
+
+"Does he scrub floors?" asked Marcella in awestruck tones.
+
+"It's all he's good for. He never earns a penny. He goes and tacks on to
+any fellow he sees looking a bit flushed with money and boozes with him
+all day. He often meets a fellow that knew us when we had the hotel, and
+he gets a beer or two out of him."
+
+"Oh, I am sorry, Mrs. King," began Marcella, but Mrs. King laughed a
+little harshly.
+
+"I don't mind so much now, kid--got past it. So long as my back don't
+trouble me too much. The boys are very good to me--they put him to bed
+if he's dead drunk. If he isn't dead drunk I won't sleep with him,
+because he's always forward and vulgar when he's only half there. Then
+he haves to sleep on the sofa in the dining-room. Next day he gets up
+and cleans the grates and scrubs for me. If he didn't he wouldn't get
+any money out of me--and well he knows it."
+
+"But do you give him money for drink?"
+
+"Yes. But not till he's done his scrubbing. You see, being in the hotel
+business all his life, he can't get started of a morning till he's had a
+dog's hair. So he'll scrub all three storeys down for thruppence. When
+he's had one drink, and is safe inside a hotel, he's got sauce enough to
+raise drinks out of anyone. But you know, whenever there's a new chum
+about that he can get thruppence out of, it's poor Ma for the scrubbing.
+And my back's just as bad as bad can be!"
+
+The fire was not very bright. Marcella wished Louis's chops would cook
+more quickly. She wanted to get upstairs.
+
+"It's dreadful being married to a man like that," said Marcella.
+
+"It is," said Mrs. King, planting her iron viciously on Mr. King's shirt
+that she was ironing. "I used to try to stop him once. Only you get
+disheartened in time, don't you, kid? The times I've started a new home
+and had it sold up under me! Six homes I've had and this is the seventh.
+And the times I've trusted him, only to get laughed at for being a soft.
+Now all I do is to feel damn glad to get him off my hands for the day.
+We've made that a hard and fast rule. I'll do for him, and give him a
+meal of a Sunday when the hotels are closed and see to his washing, and
+let him sleep in my bed when he's drunk enough not to get vulgar. In
+return he does the scrubbing and the grates, and I find him in
+liveners--"
+
+"Oh, my goodness--do you love him?" asked Marcella, staring at her.
+
+It was Mrs. King's turn to stare.
+
+Then she laughed loudly, a little hysterically, until tears came into
+her eyes as she stood with her iron poised.
+
+"Love him? By cripes, no! I'd as soon think of loving one of them bugs
+the Dagoes leave in your bed when they have a room for the night."
+
+"Why did you marry him, then?"
+
+Mrs. King put down her iron and stared out through the door into the
+sun-baked courtyard where washing flapped and bleached and hens
+scratched in the dust. It seemed as though she had never thought about
+it before.
+
+"I suppose I married him for the same reason as you married your chap,
+kid. I suppose I was took with him, once."
+
+Marcella gathered her plates and teapot on the tray and stood at the
+door for an instant, visioning last night's glamour ending in loathing,
+or in dull acceptance of misery and disappointment.
+
+"I do feel sorry, Mrs. King," she said, her eyes damp.
+
+"I'm sorrier for you, kid," said Mrs. King, attacking the shirt again.
+"How old are you?"
+
+"Nineteen."
+
+"And I'm nearly forty-nine. I've got through thirty years of my misery,
+and you've all yours to come. I've learnt not to care. I go and have a
+bit of a splash at the Races when I'm pretty flush with money, and I
+have a glass or two of port with the boys sometimes, and get a laugh out
+of it. You've got to learn these things yet, poor little devil. But
+don't you make the mistake I made and be too soft with him."
+
+Marcella shook her head.
+
+"And--I say, kid. I go down on my bended knees every day and thank God
+I've got no kids of his--"
+
+"I think it's a pity. You must be so cold and lonely," she said, seeing
+a resemblance between Mrs. King and Aunt Janet.
+
+She had made the bed before she went down to cook the breakfast. Louis
+was reading the paper and smoking, looking very well. She hated to see
+him in bed now.
+
+He ate his breakfast in silence, with the paper propped in front of him.
+She pushed the window wide and, perched on the window-sill with a cup of
+tea outside and a piece of toast in her hand, she decided on what she
+was going to say to him.
+
+"Louis," she said at last, "I am a wretchedly dissatisfied sort of
+person, dear."
+
+He looked at her enquiringly and smiled.
+
+"Louis, can you get up to-day and come out with me?"
+
+He hesitated for a moment. Then he sighed.
+
+"My dear--I don't think it's safe," he said in a low voice.
+
+"Really?"
+
+"Yes, really."
+
+"Well, then, it isn't. But I hate to see you lying here like this. I
+want us to go and explore. In that big garden by the waterside it's
+gorgeous. And--there's your work."
+
+He flushed a little, struggling with himself. At last he said:
+
+"After all, it's our honeymoon. We can afford to slack a little."
+
+She laughed outright at that. He could not see anything to laugh at.
+
+"It isn't enough for me--slacking. I hate it. I want to do things just
+all the time. I want to dig up fields and move hills about, and things
+like that. Louis, don't you think we might go up country and be
+squatters like uncle?"
+
+"I wouldn't mind being a squatter like your uncle," he said, comfortably
+"with fifty quid notes to splash all over the shanty! But you're not
+getting tired of me, are you, darling--after last night?" he added
+gently. She flushed, and fidgeted perilously on the window-sill.
+
+"No, Louis. But--after last night--I don't like to see you lying here
+like this," she began.
+
+"I know it's boring for you, my pet. Marcella, come and sit on the edge
+of the bed. We can talk better if you're near me."
+
+"No, I'll stay here," she said decidedly. "And it's not boring for me.
+It's--" She was going to say "degrading" but stopped in time.
+
+"You know, I think I'd be all right," he went on, "if I got up and went
+out now. But I can't be sure. I don't want to hurt you again, darling."
+
+"I know, my dear. But I can't help thinking this is a negative thing. If
+you had something to do--something that would interest you so much you
+couldn't even think about whisky."
+
+"I've got that something in you, when you're as sweet as you were last
+night," he said softly. She felt sickened for a minute. The Spear in her
+hand wavered; it seemed to be turning to a chain again. A chain for her,
+a Spear for him--she said quietly:
+
+"I like taking care of you, Louis. I'm not thinking of myself at all.
+Only I can't help wishing you'd got pneumonia, or a broken leg or
+something, so that you could stay in bed sort of--honourably."
+
+"It's worth while, if I get better, isn't it, my pet?" he said, slowly.
+
+"_Anything's_ worth while--if you get better," she said.
+
+And so the days wore on until they had been married six weeks. In all
+that time Louis never saw whisky. This, he confessed to her, was a
+miracle; except for when he was with the Maories in the Prohibition
+Country, and when he had been in hospital for various long stretches, he
+had never known three days to go by without his being drunk. So she felt
+that they had advanced steadily. Moods of depression came and went,
+charmed away by her. They spent a good deal of time on the roof. They
+had not many books to pass the slow hours, though Dr. Angus sent two
+every week. Louis began to lecture her on medicine; he really knew
+extraordinarily well what he had learnt: he was an excellent teacher of
+facts, but he had not one iota of deductive thought in his teaching and,
+like Andrew Lashcairn, was remarkably impatient if she did not
+understand or, understanding, ventured to express an opinion of her own
+about anything. They had many glamorous nights on the roof, nights that
+recalled the enchantment of those hours under the Aurora, nights of
+severe mental reservation on Marcella's part, all unsuspected by Louis.
+He confessed to her that his ideas were getting modified; a great
+confession for so crusted a conservative as he.
+
+One night they were kept awake by a tropical downpour which lashed
+against the windows and poured through the ceiling. Three times they had
+to get up and move the bed round to escape the stream of water. Marcella
+seemed to be spending all the night mopping up water.
+
+"If Mrs. King sees all this mess I expect she'll say we mustn't go up on
+the roof again," said Louis. "I suppose we cracked the rusty old iron by
+walking about on it."
+
+"I love the roof," said Marcella, patiently mopping. It was three
+o'clock: the shrill hum of mosquitoes made them afraid to put out the
+light, since they had no mosquito nets. After a while they stood by the
+window watching the water running along the street as high as the kerb
+stones.
+
+"I love the roof, too. A few months ago I'd have fainted at the thought
+of doing anything so unconventional as sleeping on a roof. You are
+changing me, Marcella. I'm getting your ideas of not caring what people
+think, of being my own censor. And--do you know something else,
+Marcella?" he added, looking at her with adoration. Her eyes asked
+questions.
+
+"I believe I've got it beat at last."
+
+"The whisky?"
+
+"Yes. I don't want the bally stuff now. I want you instead. I hate you
+away from me for an instant. If you went away now, dearie, I'd be raving
+with d.t. next day!"
+
+"Oh Louis!"
+
+"I would! I worship you, Marcella. You're life itself to me. I can't get
+on two minutes without you."
+
+"But just supposing I did die--seriously, Louis! People get knocked down
+in streets and all that. Why shouldn't it be me?"
+
+"I shouldn't attempt to live. I know exactly what I'd do. I've got it
+all worked out! I shall just get blind, roaring drunk and then throw
+myself in the harbour. My life is useless without you."
+
+To his amazement she wrung her hands hopelessly, and looked at him with
+tragic eyes.
+
+"Can't you see, you utter idiot, that that's just all wrong? It's no use
+doing things for someone else! You've got to do them for yourself!
+What's the good of it? Do you think I want to make you a flabby thing
+hanging on to my apron strings all the time? You've got drunk on whisky
+in the past. Louis, I'm simply not going to have you getting drunk on
+me! What on earth's the use of conquering drink hunger and getting
+woman-hunger? It's only another--what you call neurosis, and what I call
+kink! If that's all the use my love and the whole wicked struggle is
+going to be, I might as well give up at once?"
+
+He caught her wet face between his hands. In the light of the candle he
+looked at her earnestly.
+
+"If, at the end of all this, I've to go on being a prop to you, we need
+not go on trying any more. Props are rotten and cowardly, whether they
+are props of love or not. I want to see you grow so that, if I go out of
+life, you'll stand up straight with your head in the sun and the wind.
+Not propped, my dear! Father was all wrong, I think now. When he'd
+killed the whisky he leaned on a great big man God outside him, a shield
+and defence. Can't you see that we've to stand up alone without God or
+anything except ourselves? Can't you see that unless our strength is in
+ourselves we'll never stand? That's what I'm trying to do--and I know
+how hard it is."
+
+"You? You're not a drunkard, Marcella," he said.
+
+She smiled a little as she looked at him.
+
+"You know, Louis, you're an awful duffer!" she said, and turned away.
+But he lifted her over the wet floor into bed and, as he blew out the
+candle, told the mosquitoes to go to hell, and kissed her face and her
+hands, he thought he had effectually stilled her queer ethical
+doubtings. And she felt very much alone and unguided, and not at all
+able to stand up straight without a prop as she had preached to him.
+
+For the next few days Louis was depressed and restless. She did not
+understand him. She was not yet aware that his hunger came on in
+periodic attacks and thought that she must have hurt him in some way to
+make him so wretched. She tried to be especially gentle to him, but he
+was rather difficult to please. He developed a habit of womanish, almost
+shrewish, nagging that astounded her; he grumbled at his food, he
+grumbled at the discomforts of living in one room; he made her feel
+cheap when she kissed him by turning away and saying, "There, that's
+enough, now!"; he found fault with her clothes and, one morning as she
+was dressing, said he was tired of seeing her cleaning the room; she
+seemed to think that that was all he needed--a nurse and a servant,
+since she never troubled to make herself attractive to him. Several
+times, coming from doing her cooking in the basement, she found Mr. King
+slinking along the top landing, but did not associate him with Louis.
+Several times she thought she smelt whisky, but told herself angrily
+that she was dreaming. Then, one day, coming in from the Post Office,
+she found Louis gone. One thing she noticed as she came along the
+landing was an empty bottle in the dark corner behind the door. As soon
+as she opened the door she saw three whisky bottles, empty, on the
+mantelpiece. On a piece of paper he had written:
+
+"Get all the satisfaction you can out of these, old girl. I'm off."
+
+She felt cold with horror, but there was nothing she could do. Mrs. King
+said that she had seen him go out at two o'clock. And that was all she
+could learn. For the rest of the afternoon and evening she was almost
+frantic with fear. But the money was not touched. She could not imagine
+what had happened until Mrs. King told her that Mr. King had confessed
+to getting letters containing money from the Post Office for Louis, and
+buying him whisky. Marcella ran out of the house, almost crazed with
+fright, to look for him. When she had only gone a few hundred yards she
+ran back, afraid he might come in and need her. It was not until after
+midnight that a violent knocking on the front door roused Mrs. King and
+sent Marcella down the stairs in a panic.
+
+It was Louis. His eyes were wild, his clothes muddy. He lurched past
+Mrs. King and, making a great effort, managed to get upstairs.
+
+In the room, instinct made Marcella shut and lock the door. He had
+thrown himself on the bed, his muddy boots on the coverlet. He lay there
+breathing heavily for awhile until he was violently sick.
+
+"Oh, Louis--my poor little boy!" she cried, forgetting that he was drunk
+in her fear that he was ill.
+
+"You think I'm drunk, ole girl--not drunk 'tall, ole girl."
+
+"Well, get undressed and get into bed," she said, trying to help. He
+struck her hand away from his collar fiercely and, holding her arms
+twisted them until she had to beg him to let her go.
+
+"Aft' my papers," he cried fiercely. Then he seemed to recognize her and
+began to rave about his duty to England, and how England's enemies had
+given him poison.
+
+"I'm poisoned, ole girl. I knew what it would be. But when they sent for
+me I had to go."
+
+"Who sent for you?"
+
+"They sent a note by King. It came in by the English mail. Th-th-they
+have t-t-to b-be s-so c-c-careful," he said, and that was all he would
+tell her. Soon he was fast asleep, breathing heavily, and she was
+wrestling with a sick disgust at his presence, a fright that he really
+had been in danger from enemies and the conviction that he was drunk and
+not poisoned. She lay on the floor again this time because she could not
+bring herself to touch him or go near him. His hands and face were dirty
+and he had definitely refused to wash them or let her wash them. But in
+the middle of the night he woke up and began to shout for her.
+
+"I wan' my wife. Where's my wife?" he raved and groping till he found
+the candlestick knocked on the floor with it. She sprung up hastily.
+
+"Louis--hush, dear. You're waking up all the poor boys who have to go
+to work at six o'clock," she whispered.
+
+"I wan' my wife," he cried, groping for her with his muddy hands. She
+stood trembling by the bed.
+
+"Louis, I can't--it isn't a bit of use asking me. I can't be in bed
+beside you like this."
+
+"Glad 'nough to las' night!" he said, laughing into her face. She felt
+the hot blood pumping to her skin until it seemed to her that even her
+hair must be blushing. Then she went very cold as she walked blindly
+towards the door, only conscious that she must get anywhere away from
+him.
+
+"I wan' my wife. She is my wife, isn't she? Dammit! Wha's a man's wife
+for? Marsh--Marshlaise! Damn Germ's playing Marshlaise! They're aft'
+me--I knew they'd be aft' me! Marsh-shella? Where's my Marsh-ella?"
+
+He pounded on the floor again, and she turned back, wrung by the terror
+in his voice. She lighted two candles and he saw that she was by his
+side.
+
+"I thought you'd left me," he said, beginning to cry and streaking the
+tears about his face with his dirty hands. She was shivering as she bent
+over him, her tears mingling with his.
+
+"I'm here with you, dear," she told him.
+
+"Are you my wife? Wan' wom'n--beau-ful whi' shoulders! N'est ce pas?
+Parlez-vous Franshay, mam-selle? Ah oui, oui."
+
+"Louis, you mustn't, _mustn't_ talk that beastly French, please," she
+sobbed. He thumped on the floor, staring round wildly with glazed eyes.
+There was a tap at the door. Marcella, glad of any diversion, went and
+opened it.
+
+"I say, kid, keep your boss quiet if you can," whispered Mrs. King. "My
+young chaps down below can't get their proper sleep for that row, and
+they've got a hard day's work before them if he hasn't."
+
+"Mrs. King, whatever am I to do with him?" she cried frantically. "I
+don't believe he knows it's me. And he's so horribly dirty."
+
+"Oh, go an' sit on his knee a bit, kid, and make up to him. That's the
+best way to make them go quiet. He's at the vulgar stage to-night, your
+boss is. But do keep him quiet. Not that I'm not sorry for you, kid,"
+she added, as she turned away. "They're beasts, men are. Mine's asleep
+as it happens."
+
+He was still raving, saying disgusting things that, unfortunately, were
+in English this time. Looking at him in the candlelight she felt
+terrified of him and utterly unable to treat him as a sick man and not a
+wicked one. As she stood there stiff, unable through sheer disgust to
+get any nearer to him, he clutched at her nightgown and drew her nearer.
+She felt frantic; her nails cut into her hands as she gripped them
+together as if for the comforting feel of a hand in hers.
+
+"Why should I have this disgust happen to me? It's too dirty to ask
+women to get men to sleep like this."
+
+Then, amidst all the searing things he was saying, came the memories of
+those cries in the night at the farm and she wondered breathlessly if
+this sort of thing could have happened to her mother. And, at that
+moment she knew that it had not. Her father might, quite possibly, have
+almost killed her mother by his violent rages. But he could never have
+been merely disgusting. She looked at him again and felt murderous; a
+passion to put him out of life, to stamp upon him and finish him flooded
+up and burst and died all in an instant. She realized in that quiet
+instant that this passionate disgust was utterly selfish; if he had been
+loathsome with any other disease than this she would have nursed and
+soothed him tenderly; if he had been clean and charming, as on the night
+of the aurora.
+
+"Oh, what a hypocrite you are, Marcella Lashcairn!" she said. "With all
+your high-falutin' ideas of balance and coolness! You've been
+luxuriating in the thought of martyrdom all the time you've been
+fighting the enchantment of this wretched love-making! You've not been
+fighting it a bit, really! It's only now, when it's disgusting and
+beastly and--not a bit enchanting, that you're fighting it! What a liar
+you've been!"
+
+"I wan' my wife," he muttered, quietened a little by Mrs. King's voice.
+"'Sall very well, ole girl."
+
+"Be quiet, Louis, or I'll shake your head off!" she said, quietly. He
+stared at her, and cowered down in the bed. She watched him for a
+moment. Then she spoke softly.
+
+"Now you're going to sleep--you're going to put your head down on
+Marcella's shoulder and go to sleep. You're quite safe with Marcella."
+
+He shivered a little, and then lay still. She pinched out the candle
+with fingers that did not feel the flame.
+
+For a whole fortnight he drank steadily, using remarkable cleverness in
+getting money. He joined forces with Mr. King: for the first week they
+obtained money from some unknown source and only came home at night when
+they were put out of the hotels at closing time, and even then they
+brought whisky or gin--which was much cheaper--home with them. Marcella
+had not known there were distinctions in alcohol; she found during that
+fortnight that whisky made him mad and then terrified, gin made him
+horribly disgusting and beer made him simply silly and very sick. The
+second week Louis tricked and lied to Marcella, using any excuse to get
+her out of the room. At the end of three days he had sold everything he
+possessed except his least reputable suit, which he had to keep to wear.
+The last day of the fortnight he came home without the waistcoat:
+whether he had sold that, or given it away in maudlin generosity, or
+lost it in some fantastic fashion she could never gather. He had not
+taken any of her money. On Mrs. King's advice she had gone up on the
+roof one day, crept along three other roofs and hidden it in a gully.
+
+"You've got to be up to all the dodges," said Mrs. King.
+
+"I loathe dodges," said Marcella.
+
+She got down to the depths in this fortnight. Louis scarcely slept at
+all, nor did she. Soothing him at night sickened her beyond endurance;
+she read the New Testament much during the day while he was away, and
+the story of the Grail. One day St. Paul said something to her that
+brought her up sharp.
+
+"Though I give my body to be burned and have not love, it profiteth me
+nothing; love suffereth long, and is kind: love--beareth all things,
+believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things."
+
+"I don't believe I love him. I don't believe I ever loved him. That
+madness wasn't love, or it would have endured all things," she said.
+Then Parsifal told her that without love pity might still endure all
+things. By the time she had been married two months her pity for him
+was an overwhelming ache. He pretended penitence to win it: he had no
+need to pretend....
+
+At last he had no money. Everything portable he had sold, including some
+of her clothes. His drink hunger was tearing him. She was going about
+the room with big, mournful eyes and white face, making a meal for him.
+He had scarcely eaten for the whole fortnight; she did not understand
+that he was too poisoned to eat; she tried to persuade him to take food
+until he was irritated beyond endurance and threw it on the floor. As
+she passed him, quiet footed, he noticed her purse in the pocket of the
+big cooking apron Mrs. King had lent her.
+
+"Dearie," he said presently, "leave that silly mess and come here to
+me."
+
+She came immediately, and sat on the edge of the bed, her shoulders
+drooping.
+
+"Your little Louis's so sorry," he whispered.
+
+"Are you really sorry, Louis? Not like you were last time?" she asked,
+suddenly hoping all things again on the slightest provocation.
+
+"My darling, I'm heartbroken to think of the way I've treated you," he
+said. "I think I'd better throw myself in the harbour."
+
+He took her hand in his and held it shakily. Her loose sleeve slipped
+up; on the white arm he saw blue marks of fingers; this jerked him a
+little. He had not known he had got to that yet. Suddenly he kissed them
+and began to cry.
+
+"When did I do that?"
+
+"What?" she said guilelessly.
+
+"Your arm--"
+
+"Oh, that!" she said, flushing. "That's nothing. I don't know how I did
+it. Mrs. King's mangle, I think it was. It's ugly. I don't like you to
+see ugly things." She drew the sleeve down tight.
+
+"My poor little brave darling," he whispered, drawing her closer, trying
+to make her hide her face on his shoulder as he measured the distance
+between his hand that was round her waist and the apron pocket. He saw
+that it was hopeless.
+
+"Marcella--when your father was ill, did he pray?"
+
+"Yes. All the time."
+
+"I wish I could," he murmured.
+
+"Why not, if you want to? Wanting to pray is a prayer, really."
+
+"I don't feel fit to, Marcella. Do you think you could pray for me,
+girlie?" he said, looking past her at the wall.
+
+"I--I don't think I could--out loud. I'd feel as if I were
+eavesdropping. But I can in my mind, if you like."
+
+"Let's kneel down, then, like we did in the funny little tin tabernacle
+when we were married," he said, and with an unsteady spring he was out
+of bed and kneeling by her side. For five minutes they were very quiet,
+she with her face buried in the counterpane as she prayed vaguely to
+herself and God and her father to help him. So intent was she that she
+did not feel his hand in her pocket. She thought his look of relief when
+they stood up and he kissed her meant that once more he had beaten his
+enemy.
+
+"Girlie--go down and fill the bath for me! Right full to the brim with
+cold water. Like ducking in Jordan! I feel good now. I'm going to be
+clothed and in my right mind, now," he said earnestly. When she came
+back, her shoulders squared again, he had vanished. She did not miss her
+purse until she went to the door to buy milk. Luckily there was not very
+much in it. Not till she heard the tale from Louis's lips did she
+believe he had stolen it, and when she missed a few not very valuable
+but very precious articles of jewellery that had belonged to her mother
+she thought that his tale of enemies--Germans and Chinese--who were
+dogging him, searching for valuable Government papers, must be true, and
+that they had taken her few trinkets.
+
+That night brought the climax; he had reached the limit of endurance and
+was brought home by two sailors who had found him on the Man-of-War
+Steps. A wild southerly buster was blowing, bringing rain with it in
+floods. He was drenched and so were the sailors.
+
+"He isn't half shikkered," said one of the boys admiringly. "Trying to
+jump in the harbour, saying the Germans was after him! If we'd not been
+going back to the _Astarte_ just then he'd have been in, sure enough."
+
+"I'll get him upstairs for you, miss," said one of the sailors. "He's
+going to have the rats. We'd really ought to have give him to the
+police."
+
+"I'm glad you didn't. If you can help me get him to his room--"
+
+"Right-o, miss. Is he married?"
+
+"Yes. I'm his wife," she said quietly. The sailors seemed to discuss the
+matter together. Then one of them volunteered to stay the night, as he
+guessed Louis would be dangerous.
+
+"I'll get pulled for it to-morrow," said the boy, "but it don't seem
+right to leave a girl with him."
+
+"You _are_ nice, both of you," she said gratefully, "but don't worry.
+I'm quite used to him. He'll go to sleep."
+
+Her instinct was to get rid of spectators, to have him to herself locked
+away from unsympathetic eyes. So the sailors went at last. When she got
+back from seeing them out Louis was flattened against the wall, staring
+with horrified eyes at the door, shaking violently. He had lost control
+of all his muscles; his face was grinning dreadfully. She gave a little
+cry of fright at his dreadful face. He mistook the cause of it and it
+communicated itself to him adding to his already overwhelming horror.
+
+"They're after me," he mumbled; she could scarcely tell what he said
+because his mouth could only form the words loosely. "On the roof!
+Germs--Chinks! Listen!" Suddenly he spoke with extraordinary clearness,
+telling her that he had had word that day that the Germans and Chinese
+had formed an alliance and were already over-running Europe.
+
+"Big air fleet over Melb-Melba! Alb't Hall in ruins!" he chattered."
+Chinese torture. They know I'm biggest en'my in 'Stralia, ole girl. They
+got me--to-day they caught me. I always knew it--I knew they'd have me!
+But I beat them, just as I beat the Pater! They know I'm the man they're
+after! They know I'm the son of the Duke of ----" He mumbled a name
+Marcella could not catch. "Tha's why Pater--s'posed father--pers'cuted
+me all 'long! He was in their pay. Can't you see it? But I got away.
+Only they'll have me, they'll have me. They're on the roof now!
+Marsh-Marshe-lla, can you guard chimney if they come down? Ole girl,
+guard it with your body! Coming down chimney--Christmas Eve--"
+
+He began to cry and laugh hysterically.
+
+"When I was li'l kid'--Chris-mas stockings; I nev' thought Chinks'd
+come down chim' with hot irons--scalpels--" And then he described in
+abominable detail the tortures of the Inquisition all mixed up with
+Chinese tortures and atrocities: his reading seemed to have taken a
+morbid turn for years; the unspeakable horrors he described made
+Marcella the same quaking jelly of fear as he was, for the moment. The
+wild howling of the southerly buster in the chimney spoke to her Keltic
+imagination of enemy voices; the creakings of the rain-swollen roof, the
+pattering of the hail above on the iron was like quiet-footed torturers
+advancing to their work. Her reason had gone for a moment, overwhelmed
+by horrors. She did not stop to ask herself logical questions. Louis's
+voice went on, all on one note, piling horror on horror, disgust on
+disgust.
+
+"They've killed poor ole King. Dutch Frank's in their pay--sleeping in
+the nex' room to us all these weeks. They hold your feet to the fire
+till they swell and burst. They'll do that to you, old thing, 'cause
+you're with me. Ole girl--I say, ole girl! You won't yell out, will you?
+Ole girl--show them how an Eng--Eng--can die!"
+
+She watched him, fascinated, her back against the door. With a look of
+infinite cunning he began to search his pockets and produced a bundle of
+papers, ordinary note-paper, pale grey with an embossed address and
+telephone number at the top. He handed them to her solemnly.
+
+"If they get me, ta' these! Lea' me! Le' me die f'r ole flag! Braved a
+thous' years batt' and the breeze! Ta' these to the Gov'-Genral! He mus'
+sen' these to King George! May save Buck'm Pal's! If all else falls,
+mus' save Buck'm Pal's, Marshella! King George unstans code--all in
+code--"
+
+She took them dazedly in her hands. She saw that on the whitewashed wall
+against which he had almost stuck himself was a great patch of wet from
+his drowned clothes. He was standing with a pool of water dripping from
+him; his blazing eyes were darting this way and that in terror, his
+mouth was working loosely. Occasionally he lost power of speech entirely
+and regained it with didactic distinctness for a few moments. He made
+ineffectual grabs at Marcella, but his shaking hands failed to reach
+her. His inflamed brain searched back to every horrible physical thing
+he had read, or seen, every operation he had watched; his morbid
+condition made them things of obscenity, atrocity. He repeated them all
+to her with such circumstantial and guileless exactitude that her brain
+reeled, and still she stood by the door, keeping out she knew not what.
+Watching her face growing whiter, more pinched, he remembered things
+done to women by madmen--and said them aloud.
+
+She glanced at the bundle of papers in her hand, wondering where she
+could hide them from his enemies. Opening them out so that she could
+fold them better she read the top page. It was written in thin, Italian
+handwriting, the typical caligraphy of the upper-class woman of middle
+age.
+
+"My own Darling Boy," she read.
+
+"I enclose the usual pound from the Pater. Also five shillings each from
+Mary and myself to get you some cigarettes and chocolates. I hope you
+can get that nice milk chocolate you like so much in Australia. My dear,
+I hope and pray every day that you will remember that promise you gave
+me at Tilbury. When I see other mothers with big sons I feel I can't
+bear your being right at the other side of the world. Mrs. Cornell came
+in with Rupert to-day, and for the first time in my life I felt I hated
+them both. The doctor and Mr. Blackie have been in playing billiards
+with the Pater. I strongly suspect the Pater let the old chap win.
+Anyway, he was very excited about it when he went home."
+
+She turned over to the last page, and read, "given Toby his biscuit and
+told him Master will soon be home. He will, won't he, dear boy?
+
+"Your loving old MUM."
+
+She frowned. Louis had slid down to the floor and was curled up against
+the wall, making himself as small as possible, muttering, and
+occasionally grasping out at something that eluded him.
+
+The next letter was very much the same as the first--little loving
+messages, circumstantial accounts of trivial family interests. Cook had
+been ill again and the soup was burnt one night because the temporary
+cook sent by Miss Watkin's Agency was certainly not up to her job. Mary
+had been to see "The Chocolate Soldier" again, and was very bored. One
+of the Wayre girls--the fair one--had dyed her hair for a church concert
+and couldn't wash it off again.
+
+And he said these letters were a code!
+
+Marcella had a quick struggle with two sides of her nature. The Kelt in
+her hugged the thought that these were secret service papers to be
+guarded with her life for his sake, his country's sake. There was
+nothing extraordinary to her in the thought that, in the reign of George
+V, torturing enemies were abroad with knife and bastinado and poison
+cup. She saw herself standing over his prostrate body, with countless
+slain enemies before her, and a dripping spear in her hand. She got a
+glimpse of King George, with ringlets, velvet suit and Vandyke lace
+collar gravely smiling as he received the papers from her hands. She was
+still in the romantic stage of kingship! And then the stolidly
+common-sense Puritan ancestress in her made her laugh. It was hard for
+her to disbelieve a romantic and perilous tale. But these letters! They
+were simply the pathetic love-letters of a mother to her boy, bringing
+an atmosphere of a commonplace, peaceful English home into all this
+madness. With that the truth dawned on her. There were eight of them,
+each mentioning money! Louis had admitted not writing to his father to
+put a stop to his remittance. She had forgotten to insist that it was
+done. Here was the explanation of his present orgy!
+
+He was kneeling on the floor now, trying to grip his bitten, bleeding
+fingers into the wall and crawl upwards. He thought he was in a well,
+drowning. As she bent over him the well vanished, and she became his
+enemy. He made a desperate lunge at her and tried to grab his papers
+from her. But his body was unco-ordinated; murder was in his brain, but
+it could not be transferred to his shaking hands with which he menaced
+her.
+
+She was very much stronger than he, and all the stronger now that her
+acquired fear of unknown enemies had been laughed away. The thing she
+realized most was that he must go to bed, that his wet clothes must come
+off for fear they gave him pneumonia; that, even if they were not wet,
+they must still come off and be locked up to keep him once again a
+prisoner. Only, it seemed, in imprisonment, lay peace. And peace was
+certainly not salvation!
+
+As she realized that, all the strength was taken from her, but only for
+a moment. She felt that there was something in living from day to day
+and trusting that somehow good would come to him; she thought for a mad
+moment of being drastic, and breaking his leg to make him an honourable
+prisoner, but realized with self-contempt that she was too soft to do
+that to him. Instead, she fought him to get his clothes off, and by
+shaking him till all his breath went, perhaps saved his reason by
+crystallizing his intangible fears of enemies into physical fear of her,
+whom he could see and guard against. But he dared not sleep. As soon as
+he had ceased to be afraid of her rather hard, very strong hands he
+became afraid again of the Germans and Chinks; and, seeing him there, so
+weak now, so sick, so shaky she could not shake fear into him any more.
+
+As the night wore on his delusions changed. He was still being
+persecuted, but now she was the persecutor. Once he cried out that he
+had been drinking sulphuric acid, and his throat and mouth were
+completely burnt away, leaving a gaping wound. She made tea for him,
+guessing that this was merely a picturesque way of telling her he was
+thirsty. But he thought she was poisoning him, and dared not drink the
+tea. She had only married him for his money and his position, for his
+enemies had told her he was a duke's son. She was a second Mrs.
+Maybrick--but this conveyed nothing to newspaperless Marcella. She had
+been unfaithful to him many times, he told her: Mr. King, Dutch Frank,
+Ole Fred and the Chinese greengrocer from whom she bought granadillas
+every day, were the objects of her transferred affections.
+
+Unused to the ravings of delirium she was first wildly indignant and
+then coldly despairing; at first she thought he was cruel; then she
+realized, with a softening to pity, that he was only mad. He won back
+the pity by telling her that his mouth and throat were now in an
+advanced state of decomposition, having been dead many months; maggots
+were crawling over them, choking him. The overwhelming beastliness of
+this suggestion was almost more than she could bear until she realized
+that it must be even more overwhelming for him. By chance she hit upon
+the sort of treatment a doctor would most likely have given a man
+suffering from alcoholic poisoning. She spoke to him quietly, as if
+asking his advice, though she could scarcely control her voice.
+
+"The best thing is to poison the maggots, don't you think, Louis?"
+
+He looked at her craftily, his mind switching on to a less horrifying
+thought.
+
+"Ha! I knew you had poison. Where is it?"
+
+"I gave you all the poison in that tea, dear. What is there we can use
+to poison maggots? Surely they taught you that at the hospital?"
+
+"Oh yes, yes--mix up salt and water and watch them wriggle! A quart of
+water and two tons of salt. Be quick! I'll poison the devils," he cried,
+and she watched in astonishment as he drank the salt water greedily. Of
+course he was sick, and very much better because much less poisoned.
+
+His delusions became less terrifying; the maggots changed to a bee
+buzzing inside his ear, deafening him. She killed the bee by blowing
+cigarette smoke inside his ear and telling him it was dead. When he grew
+much quieter and more reasonable he asked her the time in so ordinary a
+voice that she thought he must be quite well. The next minute he begged
+her earnestly not to come near him again because her infidelities had
+made him loathe the sight of her.
+
+Right back of her mind was the shaking conviction that she could not
+stand alone; she was longing, demanding almost, all that night, that God
+should come down from on high with chariots and thunderbolts to save
+her; she wanted Dr. Angus to tell her what to do, to persuade her that
+Louis was a sick man and not a bad man; next minute she wanted her
+father to come and thrash him to death for his wickedness. But all the
+time, illogically, she pitied him while she pitied herself. By accident
+he killed the self pity by transmuting it to a softer, more beautiful
+thing.
+
+"Did I tell you the Chinks had got that little Jimmy who was on the
+_Oriana_?" he asked casually at tea-time next day.
+
+"Who? What do you mean?" she said, starting.
+
+"I saw him and Peters sleeping out in the Domain that wet night. I was
+going to sleep there too, because I was afraid to come home to you. They
+told me they were starving. The kiddie had got his pyjamas in a bundle.
+All their other baggage had gone somewhere--probably seized for rent
+somewhere. Serves the old fool right, spending all his tin on that
+little widow!"
+
+"But where's Jimmy?" she cried, starting up to fetch him.
+
+"I don't know. I gave him a shilling to get a feed, and the old chap
+came and had a few drinks with me. I forget what happened then. I expect
+the Salvation Army 'll get the kid--if they can get him from the
+Chinks."
+
+That night she was tortured by Jimmy. Then she was tortured by all the
+children in all the worlds, especially those children who had no mother,
+and more especially those children whose fathers were chained as Mr.
+Peters was. She could not leave Louis while she went to search for
+Jimmy, whom she would have kidnapped without a second thought if she
+could. Next day Louis, though sane, was very ill with gastritis, and
+though several of Mrs. King's lodgers went from Domain to hotel, from
+hotel to the police, and from the police to the Salvation Army, they
+could not trace Jimmy. She never saw him again; he lived in her mind, a
+constant torment, the epitome of victimization, gallantly loyal and
+valiant even in homelessness and starvation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+While Louis was so weak and ill Marcella came to several conclusions.
+The first was that they must leave Sydney at once; the second was that
+Louis must be made to work if he would not be persuaded to work
+willingly. In work, it seemed to her now, lay his salvation much more
+than in imprisonment, even though she should have him imprisoned in a
+nursing home, under treatment. And in getting away from Sydney lay her
+own salvation. It was high summer; the heat to her, after the cool
+exhilaration of the Highlands, was terrific; very often the thermometer
+she borrowed from Dutch Frank's bedroom registered a hundred and twenty
+degrees in their room, and the close intimacy of life in one room was
+becoming appalling to her. While he was in bed she was happy in a purely
+negative way; very soon happiness came to mean to her the state of
+quiescence when he was not drunk. They had cleared up many things, and
+though she was glad to have got to the bedrock of truth about him at
+last she was sick with disillusionment, and a self-disgust at having
+been so credulous, so easily deceived. In the state of chronic
+depression reactive to his orgy he let out all the truth about himself
+in a passion of self-indulgent penitence. His tales of secret service
+were, he told her, not technically lies. They were the delusions of his
+deranged mind. He had read a spy book in England just before meeting
+her, when he was recovering from a similar orgy; it had made a dint on
+his brain similar to the impression left by the French girl earlier. In
+the same way he explained his morbid tales of Chinese tortures--once, in
+a fit of melancholy, he had attempted suicide, and after his recovery
+had gone to the seaside with his mother to recuperate; in the
+boarding-house had been a collection of books on atrocities. It seemed
+that everything he read or saw when in a state of physical relaxation
+affected him psychologically. Marcella did not realize this, however,
+until long afterwards.
+
+The tales he had told her about his parentage he was inclined to treat
+with amusement.
+
+"Don't you know, darling, that that's the first thing a man says when
+he's crazed with any sort of delirium? Either his mother's honour or
+some other woman's goes by the board. I just had a variant on that
+theme--that's all."
+
+She was silent for a while, crushed.
+
+"And then the things you said to me, Louis. About me and--that awful Mr.
+King and old Hop Lee who brings the fruit. They are simply unforgivable.
+Louis, I'll do all I can to help you, my dear, but I'm finished with
+you. You sneered at me because you knew I liked to kiss you. Nothing on
+earth can ever make me do it again."
+
+"Marcella," he said solemnly, "the other night I had d.t.--just a mild
+attack. Ask any doctor and he'll tell you about it. Those things I said
+to you _I_ didn't say, really. They were just lunacy. There was an
+Indian student at the hospital who used to assure us solemnly that
+delirious or drugged or drunk people were possessed by the spirits of
+dead folks; drunkards by drunkards' spirits who wanted drink so badly
+they got into living bodies to satisfy their craving that even death
+couldn't kill. I used to laugh at him as a mad psychic. But I'm hanged
+if it doesn't look as if there's something in it. You know _I_ couldn't
+talk to you like that, little girl, don't you? You forget that this is
+illness, dearie."
+
+"I'm afraid I do, Louis. Anyway, whether it's you or--or--an obsessing
+spirit, or anything else, I can't help it. I can't have you talk like
+that any more."
+
+"No--I quite see that," he said thoughtfully. "I can explain it, you
+know."
+
+"I'm tired of explaining," she said wearily, sitting on the table with
+her legs swinging. Her hair was plaited back and tied with a big bow, as
+she usually wore it in the house; his heart contracted with pity as he
+saw what a girl she looked.
+
+"I don't think people ever realize how deeply this question of physical
+fidelity has sunk into us--as a race, I mean. If you knew it, Marcella,
+it's absolutely the first thing of which people accuse those they love
+when they get deranged in any way. A dear old man I knew--he was quite
+eighty--a professor of psychology--when he was dying had the most
+terrible grief because he seriously thought he'd got unlimited numbers
+of girls into trouble. I suppose"--he went on slowly, wrestling with his
+thoughts as he put them into words--"I suppose it's because we resent
+infidelity so bitterly or else--why is it it touches us on the raw so
+much? Why is it you were so sick with me for saying that insane thing
+about King and Hop Lee?"
+
+"I don't know, Louis," she said hopelessly. "It simply made me feel
+sick."
+
+"But--it _did_ touch you on the raw, you know, or you wouldn't have felt
+sick. It wouldn't make you feel sick if I accused you of murder or
+burglary--I believe it's simply because we might, all of us, very
+conceivably break the seventh commandment; in fact, I don't believe
+anybody goes through life, however sheltered and inhibited they may be,
+without wanting to break it at least once! And that's why we're so mad
+when anyone says we have."
+
+She thought this out for a while.
+
+"Well, I think that's perfectly disgusting, and that's all I can say
+about it," she said finally.
+
+Later he explained in a very clear, concise way, the reason for his
+outburst. Partly it was periodic; partly it was the result of outside
+circumstances. He had lied to her to "keep his end up," he said; he had
+clung to his father's money because he could not bear that she should be
+penniless; then a letter from his mother, brought at his request by
+King, had upset him. It told how Violet had returned his engagement
+ring; she had forgotten to do it until her husband, noticing it in her
+jewel-case, had asked its history and insisted on its return. His mother
+had said she would keep it safe for him until he came back; his father
+had said it must be sold to pay some of the debts Louis had left. There
+had apparently been a family quarrel: the mother, wanting sympathy, had
+written to Louis about it. And he had felt angry with Violet, angry with
+Violet's husband, angry with his father. "That explains why, when I went
+off my head, I said I wasn't the Pater's son, and why I crystallized my
+annoyance with Violet into hatred of you."
+
+There was a long silence. Marcella was learning things rapidly.
+
+"Then, when everything outside goes well, we shall be happy, but if the
+tiniest thing upsets or annoys you I shall have to suffer?" she said
+calmly.
+
+"Oh, my pet--" he began brokenly, and burst into tears.
+
+She felt that his crying was pitiful, but very futile. Later, very
+shakily, he wrote a letter to his father at her dictation, and she
+posted it, thus cutting them off from England. He got better slowly,
+able, as his brain cleared, to treat himself as a doctor might have
+done. As soon as he seemed able to talk about the future she raised the
+subject.
+
+"Louis," she said one evening, "I've learnt a lot of things lately. I've
+learnt that I must never believe a word you say, for one thing. And I'm
+going to act on that. But what's worrying me most is that we have
+practically no money left."
+
+"Oh, my God!" he cried tragically.
+
+"You see," she went on calmly, "I believed in your work, so I was not
+particularly careful with the money. That's one thing. Another is that
+we're both going to work or you'll be worse and I'll murder you soon.
+Number three is that we're going to get out of this city where you won't
+be in constant temptation. Perhaps when you've got some nerve back again
+we'll live among people again. You can't stay in bed for the rest of
+your life. You'd be bored to drink in no time--"
+
+"I couldn't be bored where you are, girlie," he whispered tenderly. "How
+could I be?"
+
+"I don't know, but you are. And so am I," she said grimly. He stared at
+her and was silent.
+
+"What are we going to do till we get away, then?" he asked. "We've still
+got the Pater's money--"
+
+"Yes, that will come for weeks yet. I've thought all about that. If I
+were heroic I suppose I'd not touch it. But I don't see how we can avoid
+it."
+
+"But it isn't enough to get out of Sydney with," he said petulantly.
+
+"Yes it is. I'm going to find work for us," she informed him.
+
+"What sort of work?"
+
+"Anything--farm work is all I know. But probably I could cook. Mrs. King
+has told me a good many things to make."
+
+"But, Marcella--" began Louis, almost tearfully.
+
+She turned to him quickly.
+
+"Louis, you're to leave this to me. On the _Oriana_ you said you would.
+I'm your doctor and I'm prescribing treatment. I may be wrong, but give
+me a trial, anyway. I don't want to boss you. I want you to be free. But
+you can't till you've learnt how to walk yourself."
+
+And she would say no more, but going to several agencies in Pitt Street
+put down their names. She told them she came from a farm in Scotland,
+and they seemed very pleased to see her. But when she added that she was
+married to an Englishman who had a public-school education they became
+sceptical.
+
+"What can he do?" they asked. She hesitated.
+
+"Rouseabout?" asked the clerk. When they explained that this meant being
+Jack-of-all-trades on an up-country station, Marcella, in a spirit of
+sheer mischief, said that would suit Louis well. She liked the busy
+sound of the word, too. But though she called at the agencies day after
+day, no one seemed to want her. At last a clerk, an elderly, pleasant
+woman explained.
+
+"They're afraid to engage newly married couples on up-country stations
+where there are not too many hands for fear they go having children--you
+see, that puts a woman out of action for a while and throws all the work
+out of gear. If you were forty-five or thereabouts, now."
+
+This seemed an astonishing state of things to Marcella.
+
+The days passed. Louis got up at Christmas time in the blazing heat of
+midsummer, looking a shadow of himself. He began to take a greedy
+interest in doing things; he made a cupboard for the crockery lent them
+by Mrs. King; he made it very well, very carefully, hampered by lack of
+tools. He read hungrily all the books Dr. Angus sent to Marcella,
+especially lectures and scientific books. He seemed to disagree on
+principle with whatever she said, and they had many pleasantly heated
+arguments. His mother sent him papers--the "Referee," "Punch," the
+"Mirror." He cut out many of the "Punch" pictures and tacked them up
+beside the Landseer print, side by side with Will Dyson's cartoons from
+the "Bulletin" that Marcella liked. When there was nothing to read or do
+he told Marcella yarns of his past, until she grew to know his people
+very well. Whenever he felt tempted to lie to her he pulled himself up
+pathetically, and she saw that he was really trying to keep his tongue
+under control. When everything else palled they played Noughts and
+Crosses, or Parson's Cat, or Consequences. Mrs. King had asked them
+repeatedly to play cards with her "young chaps" in the kitchen, but
+Louis was too frightened to face them. He was too shy to go downstairs
+to carry up water or coal for Marcella, and she had to do it herself; in
+the undermined state of his nerves it was torture to him to face people,
+and he became petulant if asked to do what he called "menial tasks."
+Marcella understood him: Mrs. King had no hesitation in saying he was
+abominably lazy.
+
+Money became more and more scarce, but this worried her not at all. She
+was coming to associate the possession of money with Louis's
+restlessness, for always on English mail days he was restless and bad
+tempered until she had paid away practically all their money, when he
+became calm again. She began to think that if she could devise a way of
+living by barter, without money at all, they might conceivably eliminate
+these fits of restlessness and petulance. And all the time, as there
+seemed no chance of getting work, she was racking her brains for some
+way of getting out of the city before his next intermittent outburst
+came along.
+
+English mail day usually happened on Monday; on the Saturday before the
+last remittance would arrive Marcella discovered that she had no money
+at all. She told Louis with a little, perplexed laugh.
+
+"Lord, and I've no cigarettes," he cried in dismay.
+
+"Well, it's only one day," she began. He got nearly frantic.
+
+"You know perfectly well I can't do without cigarettes," he cried. "If I
+do I'll get all raked up. You know what it means if I get all raked
+up--"
+
+"Oh, don't always be threatening me with that," she cried hotly. "You
+know I'm doing my best, Louis. But I tell you I wouldn't be a slave to
+anything like cigarettes. I do believe St. Paul when he says, 'If thy
+right hand offend thee cut it off.' _I_ would--if my right hand dared to
+boss me."
+
+"Probably you would," he sneered. "We all know how damned superior you
+always are, and as for an emasculated old ass like St. Paul--blasted,
+white-livered passive resister--"
+
+She stared at him and laughed. Her laugh maddened him.
+
+"I wonder why it is," she said quietly, "that if anyone conquers his
+particular vice, people sneer at him and call him names? You seem to
+think that curing a cancer in one's mind is rather an effeminate thing
+to do, Louis--rather a priggish thing. I suppose if you get cured of
+drinking you'll say you never did it for fear of being called a prig?"
+
+"Oh, for God's sake stop theorizing and face facts!" he cried. "Just
+like a woman, to run away from things. Where am I to get cigarettes from
+for to-morrow? Marcella, I can't be without them! What on earth you do
+with the money I can't imagine! Girlie--do get them for me," and he
+burst into tears. She stared at him in astonishment. The next moment her
+arms were round his neck, his head on her shoulder.
+
+"You poor little boy," she whispered. "Don't worry. I'll get them for
+you."
+
+"I'm sorry I'm such a kid, dearie. But you know my nerves are in rags
+yet. And I can't be without cigarettes. I tell you I can't be without
+cigarettes! Borrow some money from Mrs. King--"
+
+"Don't you worry. I'll manage it," she said soothingly. "We've got bread
+and jam and tea. We'll pretend it's a picnic and we've forgotten the
+rest of the things."
+
+"Naturally, you'd take good care to get in a good stock of the things
+you like," he began. "Jam! Oh Lord, I do wish I hadn't a tongue. I say
+unkind things and wish I hadn't the next minute."
+
+"It rather gives away what you think, though," she said quietly, as she
+went out of the room.
+
+She passed three times through the kitchen before she could summon
+sufficient courage to borrow sixpence from Mrs. King to buy cigarettes.
+But after a while she came back with twenty cigarettes and gave them to
+Louis.
+
+He stared at them.
+
+"Only twenty!" he said gloomily. "These will never see me through all
+the week end."
+
+"They're better than nothing, anyway," she said, not noticing that he
+had not thanked her.
+
+"I've only ten more--that's thirty--till Monday at noon. I'll never see
+it through, girl--never in life. How much did you get from Mrs. King?"
+he asked wildly.
+
+"I only wanted sixpence for those," she said.
+
+"You've the brains of a gnat," he cried.
+
+They spent a miserable evening. The cigarette question was preying on
+his mind, and she made it no better by talking about people on desert
+islands, and people at the South Pole who were forced to do without
+things. She was worried about him; she felt that if he had something big
+in his life these little, mean obsessions would be sublimated by it.
+
+And the something big came, silently and unexpected.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+She wanted to go and spend the day under the great trees on Lady
+Macquarie's Chair. The cool lapping of the blue water was inviting and
+the shade of the trees promised drowsy restfulness. It seemed to her
+that, if they were not near a table or chairs, he would not notice the
+lack of a meal--anyone can sit under trees by the sea wall and eat
+bread and jam sandwiches, and forget they are doing it because they have
+to. Louis objected. To him food eaten out of doors was reminiscent of
+people from the slums having tea on Bank Holiday on Hampstead Heath or
+Greenwich Park. To Marcella it recalled days on Ben Grief with Wullie.
+But they stayed indoors with blinds drawn to keep out the stifling airs
+of the street, and sheets dipped in carbolic solution hung over doors
+and windows to keep away the half dozen unidentified insect pests that
+worried them.
+
+She wrote long letters home during the morning. Louis smoked and
+fidgetted and read the Sunday papers. She found it hard to write letters
+when he was walking about, sometimes watching the point of her pen,
+lifting a cup and putting it down again, reading a few paragraphs of the
+paper and dropping it listlessly, opening the cupboard door motivelessly
+and closing it again, lifting down books, peering behind them and
+letting them slip from his hands to the floor with a bang.
+
+She glanced up once or twice impatiently. Once, looking at her
+apologetically he said:
+
+"I keep worrying about those bally cigarettes, old thing." She saw that
+his finger-nails, which three weeks' sanity had mended, were bitten and
+gnawed to bleeding again. "I c-can't h-help it, girlie."
+
+She felt raked up and nervous, too. Since they had been married she had
+found such delight in preparing Louis's meals that she was miserable in
+not doing it to-day. She felt that she was to blame, that she had been
+remiss somewhere, though she could not see where. But she answered him
+crossly and impatiently, and he began to fidget about the room again.
+
+"I've been reading 'Parsifal' again and again, doctor," she wrote. "Do
+read it, and tell me what you think of my theory. I see humanity as
+Amfortas, the wounded king, who, if he hadn't let himself so wantonly
+get wounded, would still have been the keeper of God's Presence on
+earth. I see the Spear as humanity's weakness, which, by being turned to
+strength, becomes a spear of Deliverance. Ingenious, isn't it? You'll
+say 'More dreams, Marcella?' But they're not dreams, doctor, any more.
+I'm a man of action now, and I like it."
+
+"I say, old girl," broke in Louis's voice. "It's nearly one o'clock and
+I've only three left. I've smoked them faster than usual simply because
+I've been worrying so. What the devil am I to do when these are
+through?"
+
+"Play ring o' roses on the roof and forget it," she said, with a laugh.
+"Ration those--one each hour when the church clock strikes. Then we'll
+go to bed and go to sleep and make to-morrow come quicker."
+
+"You know I never sleep if I haven't a smoke," he said impatiently "I
+wish it wasn't Sunday. I'd go out and get drunk."
+
+She made tea, which he swallowed in huge gulps. He refused food, but she
+ate large, thick slices of bread and jam with relish. The heat of the
+day came down like an impalpable curtain, making her tired and gasping.
+Twice she stood under the cold douche in the bathroom, but the exertion
+of dressing made her blaze again. In the afternoon they both tried to
+read, but he was too restless to be held by a book and she found
+"L'Assommoir" which Dr. Angus had sent out among a collection in answer
+to her request for "every book about drink," depressing. It told her
+nothing; all these books seemed to her to hold a policy of despair that
+indicated lunacy or suicide as Louis's only possible end. E.F. Benson's
+"House of Defence" was the most hopeful book she read. In the tormented
+morphia-maniac she saw Louis vividly. But she knew that he was too
+innately untrustful, unloving, to be saved by an act of faith. She had
+put that book down an hour ago, and turned again to the real pessimism
+of Zola, longing for the cool of the evening to come.
+
+"Marcella," said Louis at last. "There's only one now."
+
+She put the book down impatiently and, going across to him, sat on the
+cool, draughty floor, taking one of his limp, damp hands in hers.
+
+"You know, little boy, if you really were a little boy, I could smack
+you and put you to bed for being such a worry. Didn't your mother ever
+stop you worrying for things when you were a kiddy? If I ever wanted
+things father made me go without them on principle."
+
+"Yet he killed himself with drink."
+
+"Yes. I guess he didn't mean me to kill myself with any desire at all!
+Fancy being tyrannized over by a bit of paper and tobacco! Can't you get
+a picture of it? A nice, big man like you and a cigarette standing there
+with a grin on its face, like a savage god, making you bow down and
+worship it! Horrible! Didn't the Lord know all about you when he made
+that commandment about graven images!"
+
+"Oh, you're inhuman--and you're a prig! You're a block of marble. You
+think because you've never wanted anything in your life no one else
+has."
+
+"I like marble," she said with a laugh. "Something solid and substantial
+about it. You can always be sure about it."
+
+She went back to her book, but she was not reading. Presently she saw
+him raking about among a sheaf of waratahs with which she had hidden the
+ugly old grate. He looked up exultantly.
+
+"Six cigarette ends! That's enough to make three if I roll them thin.
+Lord be thanked I've some cigarette papers."
+
+There was something so pathetic about this that she forgot to feel
+contemptuous about it. Before another hour had gone he had smoked the
+three resurrected cigarettes as well as the last remaining new one. She
+made more tea. It was five o'clock, the hour when all the sun's heat in
+Australia seems to gather itself together and pour downwards, drawing up
+the earth heat to meet it. Louis looked fagged and worn. She re-dipped
+sheets in cold water and hung them up to cool the room a little; her
+hair was damp, the atmosphere of the room quite motionless.
+
+"Do you think I could smoke tea?" said he, plaintively. "I believe
+people do sometimes."
+
+He took the tea from the caddy, rubbed a little in his palm and made a
+cigarette with it. It drew with difficulty; after the first bitter whiff
+he threw it away impatiently and sat on the edge of the bed, his face
+buried in his hands.
+
+She dashed out of the room and went down to the dining-room. Four of the
+"young chaps" were playing their interminable game of cards at the
+table. A three months' old niece of Mrs. King, whose mother was sitting
+with her sister in the bedroom talking, lay in a dressbasket on the
+table being guarded by the men.
+
+She blinked knowingly at Marcella, who bent over her. Two men lay asleep
+on chairs, one on the couch. They were all in various stages of undress,
+and had towels round their necks with which they mopped their damp
+foreheads. They looked up and greeted her as she came in.
+
+"Have a game, ma?" asked Dutch Frank.
+
+"No, thank you. I've come to beg, borrow or steal. Can someone lend or
+give me a few cigarettes? My poor man has run short. It's too hot to go
+out. At least, I'm going to stay in."
+
+They all had any amount of cigarettes; the piles of ends in the hearth
+made her think contemptuously of Louis scrabbling in the dust for them.
+Next minute she was sorry for her unkindness. The boys each pressed a
+packet of ten upon her; when she tried to choose between them they
+insisted that they would be jealous unless she took them all. Louis's
+face, when he saw forty cigarettes in her hand, disgusted her. It was
+like the pigs in the sty at feeding time--squealing--jostling.
+
+In his relief, he became quite charming. He began to joke, and "be good"
+just like a child who had worried all day for a treat and been granted
+it by a weak mother who had reached the limit of endurance. He joked and
+told her stories and was more pleasant than she had ever seen him.
+
+"You are a darling, you know, and you do spoil me, girlie," he said,
+kissing her hand. "You forgive me for being a baby, don't you?"
+
+She could not say she didn't, as she smoothed the damp hair from his
+forehead.
+
+In her mood caused by his brightening spirits she felt she could not go
+on reading "L'Assommoir." She glanced at the Sunday papers and put them
+down. Louis looked at her and laughed.
+
+"Now you've got the fidgets," he said. "Let's do something."
+
+"I've nothing to read but that Zola thing, and a book on Symbolism that
+Dr. Angus sent. And I don't want to read a bit. Louis, we'll have to do
+something, you and I. We're rusting. We'll have to get away."
+
+"In this heat?"
+
+"In anything. I'm like old Ulysses. I cannot rest from travel. What is
+it--'How dull it is to pause, to make an end, the rust unburnished--'
+I've forgotten most of it. But there's one bit that appeals to me a
+great deal--'Life piled on life were all too little--' I want to do
+millions of things in my life, don't you?"
+
+He lifted his eyebrows at her, and smiled placidly over a cloud of
+smoke.
+
+"Let's go along to those agencies to-morrow and say we'll be rouseabouts
+without any wages, just for food. I'd love to be a rouseabout. It sounds
+so beautifully active. 'Rouseabout'! I think John the Baptist was a
+rouseabout, don't you? The rouseabout of the Lord! Oh Louis, let's be
+that, shall we?"
+
+"You'd never stand it."
+
+"Well, anyway, after this week we've got to do something."
+
+He immediately became petulant and worried again, so she told him
+blithely that she would arrange things. She grew to do this more and
+more as she knew him better. The cigarette famine that had made such a
+misery of the day was only typical of many things; anything that caused
+him the least anxiety lost him both nerve and temper, and he was only in
+the way. So in self-defence she began to protect him from everything,
+simply making plans and trying to get him to fall in with them with the
+least possible friction. And this was not very easy: he disagreed with
+her arrangements on principle, though he always fell in with them later.
+This, he considered, was his way of showing his man's authority.
+
+As it grew cooler they went up on the roof. The iron was hot, the stone
+coping still warm, but there was a faint breeze blowing in from the sea,
+and the blue air was less heavy.
+
+"What can we do?" he said, helplessly, looking down on the few weary
+people crawling through the streets.
+
+"Nothing," she said, leaning back against the chimney-stack.
+
+"I'll tell you what. Let's go on with those lectures I was giving you
+before--before I went rocky! Or rather, look here, I'll tell you what!
+The old Dean said I was one of the best men in England in midder."
+
+"What's that?" she said, resignedly. She did not want to listen just
+then. She wanted to be quiet and think out the very obtrusive financial
+and moral problem of getting away. She felt like Lot when he knew of the
+destruction to come upon the cities of the Plain. But she felt one
+couldn't walk out of things as Lot had walked. Only--she had to do her
+worrying with placid face, giving lip-service to his entertainment; it
+would never do for him to know the convolutions that had led her to any
+conclusion; he was an innate pessimist, she an optimist. So she thought
+with half her mind and listened with the other half.
+
+"Midwifery! We call it midder, you know," he said. "I was always awfully
+interested in women--as cases."
+
+He took out an envelope to make notes, and a pencil. She felt a little
+compunction as she saw his look of keen interest and realized that the
+study of medicine was probably the only thing on earth that could take
+him out of himself.
+
+"We've to begin at the beginning," he said intently. "It's amazing how
+few lay people know even the elements of embryology."
+
+She heard his voice, and all the time she was wondering if she could
+write and tell her uncle the truth, asking him to let her and Louis come
+and work for him without any pay till they had paid back the fifty
+pounds she had borrowed. He had said it was far from civilization. That
+was what she needed!
+
+"See?" came Louis's voice, keen and interested, and the words "cells"
+and "mulberry-form" floated into her consciousness.
+
+"Yes, I think I will--it's the only way," she said, answering aloud the
+silent question.
+
+"I don't believe you've heard a word, you young sinner! You confounded
+second-sighted Kelts--one never knows where you are! But next week I'll
+give you a written examination. It's not a bit of use swotting a thing
+half heartedly."
+
+She dragged herself to attention, reproaching herself for damping his
+interest. Things he was saying dropped into her consciousness like heavy
+drops of rain falling from the eaves in a light summer shower. Suddenly
+she gripped his wrist tensely and he looked up in surprise. Her face was
+flushed, her eyes shining and sending out little flashes. He had never
+seen her like this before. His pencil and paper dropped. The paper
+fluttered over the wall, the pencil dropped after it.
+
+"There, that's my only pencil," he said. "You have got the jerks, old
+lady. What's wrong?"
+
+"Why, Louis, we must be going to have a baby! I've been wondering--" She
+broke off suddenly, flushing, and would say no more.
+
+His mouth came open as he stared at her, and looked so funny that she
+laughed.
+
+"Aren't you pleased? Oh Louis, isn't it splendid--isn't it a _shining_
+sort of thing to have happen to you!"
+
+She felt it impossible to sit still; something bubbled up within her
+like fire; it was a touch of the old exhilaration she had felt on cold
+mornings in the sea at Lashnagar. She wanted to take his hands and go
+flying away with him, jumping from star to star in the thrilling blue
+sky. As it was she stood on one foot, as if poised for flight with a
+sort of spring in her movements that his softer muscles had never
+experienced. He caught at her hand, and felt it taut, and queerly,
+individually alive.
+
+"Oh, do say something nice!" she cried. "Louis, I've a good mind to push
+you off the roof--like the queen bee."
+
+They had been reading about the queen bee's amiable dealings with her
+lovers a few days ago.
+
+"Well, I'm damned!" he cried. He got an impression of her as a captive
+balloon that had dragged loose its grapnel, and was being tugged at by
+currents far above the earth, where the air was heavy and motionless. He
+gripped her hand still tighter.
+
+"Look here, young person, you sit down here and tell me all you mean,"
+he said. She stared at him. He suddenly looked much more responsible. It
+was the doctor in him suddenly awakened to new life. He had not felt
+the birth struggles of the lover or the father yet.
+
+"But you're not ill and tired like women are. I can't believe it," he
+objected, frowning with a sort of diagnostic eye upon her.
+
+"Why should I be?" she said, laughing and rumpling his hair which was
+very straight and neat and made him look too elderly for her wakened
+mood of ecstasy. "It's too splendid! It's a funny thing, I've never
+thought of having babies before. I've always been a Knight, you know.
+And knights don't have babies. Oh Louis, wouldn't they look funny,
+riding out to battle with babies on a pillion behind them? Fancy
+Parsifal with a baby! Or St. George! Yet why shouldn't they have them?
+And why shouldn't they go to battle? It would be good training for them,
+wouldn't it? They're so soft."
+
+It was impossible for him to stop her. For the first time in her life
+her tongue was loosened; she talked floods of nonsense, happy, enchanted
+nonsense. But Louis would not lose his diagnostic eye.
+
+"But didn't you know before?" he persisted.
+
+"No. Do you think I'd have been such a selfish hog as to keep it to
+myself?"
+
+"But you've read biology--you ought to have known how things happen."
+
+"Oh, bother biology! Who ever thought of biology meaning themselves? I
+didn't, anyway. I never think things in books refer to me. Fancy a
+skeleton meaning oneself! Mustn't a skeleton feel immodest? Louis, when
+I'm dead, do find some way of disintegrating me, will you? I couldn't
+bear to look as immodest as a skeleton does."
+
+After awhile she became quiet, but still bubbling over with
+irrepressible happiness. Louis was unusually gentle as they sat talking
+in whispers as though afraid the stars would hear their secret as they
+came out one by one and looked at them.
+
+"I can't believe it, yet," he said at last.
+
+"Don't worry, then. You will soon enough. Louis--how long is it?" she
+said, puckering her forehead. He made calculations.
+
+"More than six months," he said.
+
+"Oh, what a long time! I don't believe I'll ever be able to wait so long
+as that. It's like being told the king is coming--and having to wait six
+months. It _is_ a long time to wait till he's ready, isn't it?"
+
+Suddenly he caught at her hand and kissed it. Presently he went
+downstairs, leaving her there. To her amazement he appeared later with
+the mattress and pillows. He had always left her to carry them before.
+She gathered that it was her role to be waited on, and resented it.
+
+"We'll sleep up here to-night, girlie," he said. "I know you like it."
+
+"It almost seems a waste of time to sleep, doesn't it?" she said, her
+eyes filled with dreams. "And yet all the while, whether we're awake or
+asleep, talking or working, he's getting nearer and nearer--without our
+doing anything towards it!" Her eyes, as she spoke, were out seeking the
+far invisible bar of the Pacific.
+
+"It doesn't fit in with you, Marcella," he said, and her eyes focussed
+on the glowing end of his cigarette. "I can't imagine you ill and
+weak--or--or--motherly. Well, yes, perhaps motherly, because that's how
+you are to me sometimes. But you seem too young, somehow."
+
+"Whom the gods love die young," she quoted softly. "Because they keep
+young. I'll be ever so young when I'm a nice old lady with white hair. I
+shall have it cut short then, like a choir boy's in saint pictures. And
+as for being ill and weak, I never shall. I simply won't have it."
+
+"My dear, oh my dear, you'll have to. And I'll have to take care of you.
+All women need taking care of."
+
+She gave a little short, quiet laugh.
+
+"You'll not make me take off my armour, Louis," she said. He looked
+puzzled, but said nothing. She lay back on the pillow, looking up at the
+Southern Cross. The wind lifted her hair gently. Ghosts came over the
+sea, very kindly ghosts that smiled at her and passed on.
+
+His hand reached out to hers in the darkness.
+
+"I say," he whispered, into her hair, "I was an ass over those damn
+smokes. I'll--I'll buck up over that sort of thing in future,
+Marcella--can't have two babies in the family."
+
+Her eyes filled with tears.
+
+"My _dear_," she whispered, and held tight to his hand.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+
+He went to sleep that night with the muscles of his mind tightened. He
+was going to fight for his wife and child! She, judged by all he had
+known of women in his select suburb among his family's friends, and in
+his externing in the Borough was now a poor weak thing, to be cossetted
+and cared for, worked for and protected. He felt he could move
+mountains to-night--for the first time in his life he had someone weak
+to care for. No more charity from his father! No more slacking, no more
+giving way! He had an aim in life now. And, moreover, he had the
+thrilling excitement of a "case." That he could not forget, though it
+was certainly subsidiary to the feelings of pride in himself that her
+imaginary weakness had brought into being.
+
+And the "poor weak woman" lay at his side, staring at the stars with
+eyes that held bigger worlds than they. After the heat of the day to lie
+here in the coolness, with the night breeze fanning her hair, tickling
+her bare feet and arms, was very delightful. Several times she pressed
+her hands tight down on the mattress and once she pinched herself. She
+seemed, in her exhilaration, to be losing weight; she would not have
+been surprised, if she had found herself floating away to have a real,
+close-hand look at the Southern Cross. She had no idea what was going on
+in Louis's mind. No kindly angel whispered to her that she should go in,
+now, for "swounds and vapours," and thus bolster up the protectiveness
+that had come to birth within him that night. She knew nothing of
+"swounds and vapours." The rather hard women on Lashnagar were never ill
+and weak until they were ready to drop into death. Aunt Janet had never
+been weak save in the matter of the acid drops. She certainly felt
+thrilled rather than weak. She had something of contempt for the
+weakness of women. She was very fond of Mrs. King, but her constant
+complaints about Mr. King's badness and her aching back did not seem to
+Marcella to be quite playing the game. Mrs. King had solemnly advised
+her, several times, to make Louis think she was not well. When she had
+seen her carrying pails of coal quite easily up the stairs she had said,
+with a shudder:
+
+"Oh, kid--you make my back ache to see you! Why don't you let him do
+those jobs? You ought to lay down on the bed and tell him you feel
+queer. Then he'll be all over you, trying to do all he can for you."
+
+"I don't want him to, thanks," said Marcella concisely. "Why should he
+do it any more than me?"
+
+Mrs. King thought she was mad.
+
+But now she felt that they must get away from Mrs. King, from everyone.
+She began to shape her letter to her uncle in her mind, and as she did
+so, realized that she and Louis would be alone together no longer. They
+would join the communal life at Wooratonga. If he failed again--and she
+felt that, perhaps, he might fail--there would be critics. It came to
+her that it was quite impossible to go and live with her uncle and the
+three daughters who were "rather hard." She was not ashamed of Louis
+now; for that she was thankful, but she dreaded that less kindly eyes
+than hers should see him when he was weak.
+
+She touched him on the cheek with her lips. He wakened at once.
+
+"What is it, my pet?" he asked anxiously, striking a match and holding
+it close to her face.
+
+"Louis, I can't let our baby come to live in Sydney," she said.
+
+"Well, he isn't coming to Sydney to-night," he laughed.
+
+"No. But I want it settled. Louis, I was thinking it would be a good
+plan to ask uncle to let us go and work for him. But now I feel I can't
+go among his people--"
+
+"You're afraid of what I'll get up to?"
+
+"Not a bit, now. Only they'd never understand you as I do. And--we're
+fearfully happy when we don't have whisky worrying us. Don't you think
+we could go and live together in the Bush?"
+
+He sat up, lit a cigarette and passed it to her. Then he lit one for
+himself.
+
+"Can't you face the fact that you're going to be ill, Marcella?" he
+said, irritably. "You'll have to lie down for hours and all sorts of
+things. You're a lick to me--abso-bally-lutely! You ought not to be well
+like this! Lord, the things I've been told about women having babies!
+They simply get down to it--all except the unrefined working women."
+
+"Then I'm an unrefined working woman, that's all," she said
+complacently. "Anyway, Louis, to please you or anyone else I can't
+pretend to be ill. Now just forget it till it gets obtrusive. I shall."
+
+Over the roof-tops, through the moon haze streaming about the chimneys
+came a vision of the spaewife riding to Flodden after her man, riding
+from Flodden with the twin children wrapt in the Southrons' pennants.
+Marcella smiled a little. Louis frowned and fell in with her way of
+thinking. He suddenly felt flabby again. She felt taut as a steel
+spring.
+
+The next day she wrote to her uncle for money, telling him the truth. It
+was not pleasant, but it had to be done. As soon as he saw that she was
+quite decided on going, and showed no signs whatever of falling in dead
+faints about the house, Louis entered into the spirit of the adventure.
+The lure of wild places got into his feet. As he wrote down a careful
+list of the things they were to take in their swags he looked up and
+actually suggested that she should wire to her uncle for the money so
+that they need not waste a day more. As for the prospect of work, that
+worried him not at all.
+
+"You're always sure of a meal, anyway, if you're a sun-downer," he
+said. "And usually there's a job of sorts that'll keep you in grub. I
+say, old girl, we'll have to live on damper and billy-tea. It's the
+finest stuff going!"
+
+He argued long with himself about how many blankets to take, how much
+tea and flour; he talked about the kind of boots best fitted for walking
+on unmade roads: one day when they went out together he discovered a
+patent "swaggie's friend"--a knife at one end of a composition handle
+and a fork at the other.
+
+"It's a good thing to take a fork," he said reflectively, "you needn't
+eat with your fingers if you do. Fried sheep eaten with the fingers is
+rather messy at times."
+
+They arranged for Mrs. King to collect and forward their letters from
+home as soon as they gave her an address; Marcella did not mention the
+chief reason for getting away from Sydney now. She had an instinctive
+feeling that Mrs. King would think she was raving mad to run away into
+the Bush with an unborn child.
+
+"I hope you'll be happy, kid," she said, as they talked over plans. "But
+I doubt it, with him. You want more than I do--"
+
+"I want everything," said Marcella, decidedly.
+
+"I don't care so long's my back isn't too bad, and he scrubs down for
+me, and I can pay my way. I've got this house paying proper now, and the
+young chaps treat me as if I was their mother."
+
+Marcella felt it was well that she was getting away from this atmosphere
+of dull acceptance of misery, of the worst in life. Anyway, she told
+herself, she would make a quick end to things with fire or knife before
+she got like that. Expediently keeping a drunken man quiet; expediently
+kissing him and fondling him for fear he would get drunk again to-morrow
+in spite or pique: content with a man who would scrub floors for a
+"livener"! It was better, far, to be homeless wanderers in the Bush
+where there was no need to be expedient for the sake of others, where
+they would have to stand up on their own intrinsic strength or fall;
+where they need not be respectable and where she could, if he were weak,
+alternately shake him up and soothe him without spectators. She would
+never, never, never allow herself to get into this cringing habit of
+being thankful for the small mercies of life when the big justices of
+life were there, so very big and shining.
+
+"Of course," went on Mrs. King in a flat voice, "I've always one mercy I
+thank God for on my bended knees every night. That is, not having any
+drunkard's children to bring up and be a curse to me when their father's
+left off breaking my heart."
+
+"Oh--no, no!" cried Marcella, staring at her with horror.
+
+"Yes, kid, just you keep that in mind! You ta' care, my dear. It's on'y
+natural, if you have kids, they'll take after their father. And I'd
+sooner see them laying dead before me than bring up drunkards to be a
+curse to some other poor devil. They'll not escape it. It's in their
+blood."
+
+Marcella burst in passionately:
+
+"Why, Mrs. King, that's the rottenest, wickedest heresy that was ever
+invented to tell anyone! If you believe a cruel thing like that, it
+means that the whole scheme of things is wrong. Why should children take
+after a bad parent more than a good one? Why should they be weak rather
+than strong? If you're logical, what you say means that the world is
+getting worse and worse. And everyone knows it's getting better every
+minute--"
+
+"I'd like to see it," said Mrs. King.
+
+"Besides," went on Marcella, "besides, if I had a baby I'd build him so
+strong, I'd make him so good his father would simply get strong and good
+because he couldn't fight the strength and goodness all round him! I'd
+build a wall of strength round the child--I'd pull down the pillars of
+the heavens to make him strong--I'd clothe him in fires--There, I do
+talk rubbish, don't I?" she added, quietly as she turned away. But Mrs.
+King's words stuck: she pushed them forcibly away from her mind: they
+would not go, and sank deep down; they came back in dreams, tormenting.
+She dreamed often of a little child starving and cold out in the Domain,
+while the southerly winds lashed rain at him--dreams of a little boy
+with Louis's brown eyes--a little boy who gnawed his nails--and
+stammered--and grew old--and wavered--and shook in drink delirium.
+
+She refused the dreams house-room in her conscious thoughts. She looked
+at the shining billy and big enamelled mugs they had bought that day, at
+the bright brown leather straps that smelt so pleasantly new, fastened
+round two grey and two brown blankets. Louis came in and made her strap
+the two blankets on her back to see if they tired her. In spite of the
+heat of the day she scarcely felt them.
+
+"This is what they call Matilda," he told her, weighing the swag in his
+hand.
+
+"I can carry you both if you get tired," said she, looking from Matilda
+to him.
+
+She had asked her uncle for ten pounds. He characteristically made no
+comments about her omission to mention a husband when she saw him at
+Melbourne, and remarked that they would be very pleased to see her and
+her husband any time at Wooratonga. When he proved his unquestioning
+kindness she wished she had not had to ask him for money.
+
+That night they packed. There was a new lodger downstairs who proved
+very helpful. He had come from the Never-Never Land to knock down a
+cheque in Sydney; in the ordinary course of things he would have been
+blind to the world till the cheques were all spent. The night of his
+arrival, when he was only softened by a few drinks after six months'
+abstinence, the Salvation Army had got him. He had saved his soul, his
+liver and his money at the same time. And he was bursting with
+information.
+
+"You take the train to Cook's Wall, chum," he said, spitting on his
+hands and trying the strength of the good leather straps. He had tapped
+the billy and the mugs with a wise finger, giving them advice about
+soaking their boots in linseed oil for a few days.
+
+"Yous ought to buy your tea and baccy and flour in Sydney. It's dear and
+poor the further yous get," he told them. And--
+
+"Cook's Wall is the rail-head, chum," he said. "It's in the Lower
+Warrilow. There's a bit o' manganese down there, and they're clearing
+land. Plenty of work waiting. Lot of new squatters--small squatters
+without two fardens to rub together and make a chink. Them assisted lot.
+They're always glad of help, clearing scrub. They get a loand off of the
+Gov'ment for tools and seeds and stock, but they've got to clear the
+land--within three years, I think it is. Hard work, chum."
+
+Marcella and Louis looked at each other with shining eyes.
+
+"That's the place for us, old lady!" he said. "I've done clearing in New
+Zealand, and gorse grubbing. Makes you as black as your hat, and you
+sleep like a million tops and eat half a sheep at a sitting--"
+
+"You'll get a job there, ma," he went on, turning the spigot of his
+information before her now. "They're always glad of cooks for the huts
+where the men live. And they don't pay so bad, either. You get your
+rations, of course. It's rotten hard for lads that have been working
+fourteen hours in the open air to come in and start cooking."
+
+Marcella felt thrilled with the excitement of it all, but doubted her
+powers of cooking.
+
+"You needn't worry, old lady," said Louis. "It's fried sheep for
+breakfast, dinner and tea unless a cow breaks its leg and has to be
+slaughtered. And then it's fried cow. And damper and flapjacks. I can do
+that much cooking in a southerly buster with three sticks for firing,
+standing on my head."
+
+But she decided to be on the safe side and scoured Sydney for a cookery
+book. She found a very fat and flushed and comfortable Mrs. Beeton. It
+apparently weighed about two pounds. A week later Marcella decided that
+its weight was at least two stone, but the pretty picture of cooked
+foods, and the kindly advice it gave about answering doors, folding
+table napkins and serving truffles were all very reassuring.
+
+They had a tremendous argument about books. Louis flatly refused to take
+any. Marcella refused to go without some. Finally she packed the New
+Testament, "Parsifal" and the cookery book inside her swag. Later,
+opening all her books to write her name in them before leaving them on
+the shelf downstairs for the use of Mrs. King's "boys," she noticed the
+gipsy woman's prophecy in the title page of "Questing Cells" and took
+that along too.
+
+For the last time, they slept on the roof; as soon as Louis was asleep
+and Marcella lying quiet beside him, she had a visitation of her dreams
+about drunkards' children. Creeping from under the blankets silently,
+she walked right along the roof in the moonlight to have the matter out
+with herself once and for all. She did not want to take bad dreams away
+to a new life with her.
+
+"I won't believe it. What's more, I _don't_ believe it," she said
+decidedly. "Louis may be a drunkard. Father was. So were all the
+Lashcairns for ages. But I'm not. And my child is not going to be. After
+all--_is_ he our child--? I mean--Jesus was not Joseph's child--only--"
+
+She stopped, waiting. This was an immense, breathtaking thought.
+
+"Just his body is made by Louis and me--and all the rest of him
+comes--new--quite new. The spirit--the quickening spirit--"
+
+She felt, once more, as if her feet were taking wings with the
+hopefulness of this thought.
+
+"Why that's what the Catholics mean by Immaculate Conception! Of course
+it is! Why--it's all Immaculate Conception! How on earth could it,
+logically, be anything else?"
+
+She went back, then, and lay down very still. Louis lay white and quiet
+in the moonlight.
+
+"You may hurt him, Louis, if I happen to die. Not that I intend to, for
+one small instant! You may let him be hungry and cold. But you won't
+hurt him inside. I'll see to it that there's strength in him--the
+quickening spirit."
+
+Her last sleep in Sydney was dreamless.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+Even the two days' journey in the most uncomfortable train on earth
+could not damp their ardour. Most of the time Louis was gay and
+unusually chivalrous; at night, tiredness and heat cracked his nerves a
+little, making him cross and cynical until, sitting bolt upright on the
+wooden seat, she drew his head on her knee and stroked his eyes with
+softened fingers till he fell asleep. At the stations where they
+alighted to stretch cramped limbs she stayed beside him all the time.
+Once, by a specious excuse, he tried to get rid of her, but she saw
+through it and stayed beside him. He resented it bitterly.
+
+"Damned schoolmistress," he growled. "Always round me, like a limpet."
+In his eyes she read a flash of hate.
+
+"My dear, do you think I want to be a limpet?" she said, "if I don't you
+know we'll never catch the train when it starts again."
+
+"Never have a free hand," he muttered.
+
+She was puzzled. It seemed impossible to keep a constant watch on a man
+of Louis's temperament. He resented her vigilance though he demanded it.
+If she seemed to be leading him, he bolted. If she let him have his
+head, he still bolted.
+
+When they were in the train again, drawing away through miles of scrub
+further and further from the cities, she felt very glad that the strain
+was going to end soon: she would get a rest and so would he where
+probably he would have to go fifty miles to get a drink. But she
+tormented herself with the fear that inaccessibility was not going to
+strengthen him; rather it would weaken, she was afraid.
+
+At five o'clock the second day the train, which had dwindled down to one
+coach and five trucks, rattled and groaned into Cook's Wall. The station
+consisted of a rough wooden platform raised on wooden supports with a
+weather-board hut which the stationmaster called porter's room,
+booking-office, luggage-office and station hotel. Someone had
+ambitiously painted the name on the station. "COOK'S WAL" and "STATION
+HOT" appeared in green letters on the face of the structure. "L" and
+"EL" appeared round the corner in red.
+
+The surroundings of the station looked quite hopeless; a few sun-baked
+sheep-pens and races stretched behind the Station Hotel, shimmering and
+wavering in the heat haze; half a mile away was a collection of
+home-made huts consisting of boxes and kerosene tins piled on top of
+each other. A primitive winding-gear and a heap of slag marked the
+position of a small manganese mine which had been the cause for
+prolonging the single line railway so far into the Bush. To the west and
+south and north stretched scrub and bush, right away to forest and
+purple hills on the far horizon. Eastward the glittering rails shone
+back to the city, sending out blinding little flashes of light as the
+sun caught them.
+
+The guard and driver got leisurely out of the train and stood on the
+platform; the stationmaster-cum-porter-cum-hotel-keeper, in a pair of
+dungaree trousers and a dusty vest of flesh-coloured cellular material
+which gave him the effect of nakedness, stared at them as though
+passengers were the last phenomenon he had expected to see.
+
+"Cripes! What yous want?" he said.
+
+"Are we far from anywhere?" asked Marcella, smiling at him. He spat
+assiduously through a knothole in the boarding and looked from her to
+Louis.
+
+"Depends on what you call far," he said reflectively. "There's Gaynor's
+about fifteen miles along, an' Loose End nigh on thirty. Where yous
+makin' for, then?"
+
+"I should say Loose End would suit us, by the sound of it," said Louis
+with a laugh. "But it isn't much use starting out to-night."
+
+The stationmaster looked proprietorially towards the station and the
+hotel site. There seemed room for tickets, and for the man who sold
+them--if he were not a very large man. There was not much hope for
+visitors.
+
+"I'm running up a bosker hotel soon's I can get a bit of
+weather-boarding and a few nails along," he said hopefully.
+
+"That doesn't solve th-th-the immediate problem," said Louis.
+
+"Let's sleep with half of us in the hotel and half on the platform,"
+said Marcella, delighted with the authentic lack of civilization.
+
+"Be et up with h'ants," the driver informed them. "Look here, chum, if
+I was you I'd sleep in the train. She don't set off till between seven
+and eight to-morrow."
+
+They jumped at the idea, and the stationmaster, suddenly helpful,
+offered them the loan of his hut, his spirit lamp, his kerosene tins and
+his creek which was half a mile away among a few trees, low-growing,
+stunted blue gums.
+
+"Have to have a wash," the stationmaster told himself unhappily, and
+suggested the same course to the driver and guard as there was a lady to
+dinner. Then he piloted Marcella and Louis to his hut.
+
+It struck a homely note in several ways. The name of Rockefeller came to
+them in the flattened out kerosene tins which, nailed to supports,
+formed the roof; boxes stencilled with the names of well-known
+proprietary English goods formed the walls. Inside was a bed in shape of
+a frayed hammock; upturned boxes formed the chairs and there was an
+incongruous leather-topped, mahogany-legged writing-table. A kerosene
+tin was the toilet apparatus: another, cut in two, was used for boiling
+water. Given a supply of kerosene tins in the Bush, one can make a villa
+and furnish it, down to cooking utensils and baby's bath.
+
+"Next time's yous happen along, I'll have a bonser hotel," he said, and
+leading Marcella outside showed her, under the shade of a tree, a
+_cache_ of dozens of eggs laid by the hens that ran wild, and buried in
+the earth; half a sheep wrapped in canvas, surrounded by great clouds of
+flies gave evidence that it had been long dead.
+
+"Help yourself, missus. We'll all kip together. You'll find a bag o'
+flour in the hammock," said the stationmaster, and wandered off to get
+on with his hotel and his station.
+
+Marcella looked at Louis and laughed.
+
+"What luck! Here's a chance to experiment! If we get to the station
+where they want a cook, to-morrow, I'll be able to say I gave every
+satisfaction in my last place."
+
+"Always supposing we're aren't all dead before then," said Louis.
+
+The first job was to boil water and wash the plates on which she amused
+herself by tracing the remains of quite half a dozen different meals.
+She felt sickened by the sight of the dead sheep; Louis seemed unmoved
+as he ran an anatomical eye over it and hacked off slices with a blunt
+knife. He became very wise on the subject of flapjacks and felt that
+Marcella was not quite playing up to him when she preferred to make
+omelets. The meal was quite a success in spite of the fact that, when it
+was ready Louis had difficulty in beating up the host and the other
+guests, and there was nowhere to keep warm the mutton which congealed
+and stuck hard on the plates. But no one troubled about such a detail.
+They ate with enjoyment and drank vast quantities of tea with much sugar
+and no milk.
+
+They had an unbearably stuffy night in the breathless railway carriage;
+once Marcella went out on the platform and sat down for awhile listening
+to the echo-like barking of dingoes out on the ranges. In less than five
+minutes she was back again, her feet and hands prickling and sore with
+the bites of ants and sandflies. She was not at all sorry when dawn came
+at half-past three. She was disappointed in the creek; it had sounded
+luxuriously moist from the note of pride in the stationmaster's voice
+when he mentioned it. It turned out to be a suncracked water-course
+with a little muddy water lying in hollows, and one or two deeper holes
+from which the manganese miners got their water. She had been hoping for
+a swim: she had to be content with dipping a handkerchief in one of the
+hollows and wiping her face with it, since all the rest was needed for
+drinking.
+
+"Next time yous come along we'll have had a drop o' rain, an' then you
+can drownd yourselfs if you want to," said the stationmaster.
+
+They started out at four o'clock with the information that Gaynor's
+Station was a collection of weather-board huts, a homestead put together
+by five lads from England who were trying to make a fortune each. They
+had not yet made a living between them. Loose End was owned by an
+elderly squatter with many children. Five big gums, which could be seen
+for miles, stood sentinel over the homestead on a rising knoll of
+ground.
+
+"But if yous ain't lucky, don't hit up Loose End. Old Twist has lots o'
+luck, but it's mostly bad luck. A kid every year, an' eether a bush fire
+or a flood or something to make up for it. His eldest is going on for
+ten, I think--an' how's he to pay for labour to clear his land?"
+
+Neither of them knew, but they decided to make for Loose End and see
+what was going on under the five gums.
+
+That day was the strangest experience to them both. Louis had tramped
+before in the cooler New Zealand summer; Marcella had walked miles on
+Lashnagar. But this walking through the dry, sun-scorched scrub, on
+which their feet slipped and slid was an experience quite unique. The
+heat rose from the ground to meet that blazing down from the sky of
+Prussian blue. At eight o'clock they were both tired, but Marcella, who
+plodded on, calm and unworried, was not nearly so tired as Louis who
+made himself hot and dissipated much energy in wondering when they would
+get there--wherever "there" might be. He had started the day whistling
+and gay; by ten o'clock he was in the depths of despair and took
+Marcella's attempts to chaff him as insults and injuries. As soon as
+they reached a patch of stunted bushes she decreed a halt and a rest.
+They filled the billy from their water-bottles and, making a fire with
+the scorched scrub, had it boiling in a few moments. Louis, though he
+was revived to interest by the pannikin of tea and a cigarette and
+biscuits, sank back into deep depression after a few minutes, saying
+that their coming into the Bush had been the act of lunatics, that they
+would die of starvation and thirst--until she made him take out his map
+and find out where they were.
+
+Together they pored over it. After much wrangling they located Loose End
+beside a small lake and decided that they would reach there to-morrow
+with considerable effort.
+
+"Anyway, we'll have to, because of our water," said Louis. "Otherwise
+we'll die." But Marcella found that, by going a few miles west, they
+would catch up the creek that drained into the little lake.
+
+"It'll only be a dried water-course," said Louis miserably.
+
+"No it won't. It's sure to be a foaming torrent if I say it shall.
+Didn't you know I was a witch?" she told him, and she was certainly more
+right than he, for that night they camped under great eucalyptus trees
+beside a water-course which ran deep and still at their feet. The first
+thing they did was to gather wood and make a great fire. After the day's
+anxiety about water it was intoxicating to know that unlimited
+quantities were to be dipped up and made into tea. While the water
+boiled they splashed about in the water, shaking sand out of the folds
+of their underclothes and their hair.
+
+They had brought eggs and flour and salt. Louis, looking pleased with
+himself, produced a tin of Eno's Fruit Salt.
+
+"Always take this stuff into the Bush," he explained. "If you can only
+get muddy water, this makes it more possible. And it's dashed good stuff
+for making damper less damping."
+
+He put in too much and the damper was so light that it crumbled and got
+mixed up in the wood ashes. But they were both too hungry to notice
+whether they were eating damper or wood ash, and much too blissful to
+care.
+
+They spread the blankets against the roots of a great tree, over a bed
+of heathery scrub, very soft and springy; they had no axe or any means
+of chopping wood, but there was a thick carpet of dead stuff under the
+trees. Noticing dead branches hanging by thin strips of bark Marcella
+made a lasso with the swag straps and pulled them down. As far as warmth
+went, there was no need for fire at all as soon as the meal was cooked:
+but out there in the vast purple-blackness of the night with pin-points
+of starlight in the illimitable loneliness the rose and gold of the
+spurting flames was comforting and comradely. They piled the dead wood
+upon it before they lay down; as one resinous branch after another
+caught fire the trees danced round in giant shadows, as though they were
+doing a death-dance for their limbs on the funeral pyre. The silence was
+a complete blank except when a flapping of wings beat the air where some
+bird changed its night perch, or a parrot squawked hoarsely for a
+moment, causing a fluttering of smaller wings that soon settled to
+silence again.
+
+Louis rolled over; like Marcella he had been lying on his back, staring
+through the trees at the stars. His hand sought hers and held it,
+quivering a little.
+
+"You know, it's going to be a hell of a fight, Marcella," he said.
+
+"Oh my dear, do you think so?" she asked, surprised that he was
+confirming her opinion.
+
+"Yes. In the city, you see, I only have to fight myself. I know, there,
+that I can always get the stuff--even if I've no money I can beg or
+pinch it--All I've to fight there is the accessibility of it. Here I've
+to fight the inaccessibility...."
+
+"I don't quite understand that, Louis."
+
+"I don't suppose you do. You see, dearie, out here it's quite on the
+cards that I shall go completely off my rocker." He spoke quietly,
+rather wistfully and sadly.
+
+"Louis!" she cried, sitting up and looking down at him.
+
+"I know I can't get whisky, you see. It's probably a hundred miles away.
+And I've no money. You must keep it all. This craving comes on and
+simply eats me up, dear. It's like a cancer, gnawing through bone and
+flesh and muscle. In the city when the gnawing gets too awful there's
+always an anesthetic in the nearest pub. In a way, to conquer it in the
+city is more noble. I said 'noble' in inverted commas, dear. I don't
+think it is particularly noble. But it's going to be the devil of a
+fight."
+
+She did not know what to say or think. It seemed, at any rate, better
+that he should be removed from whisky, however hard it was going to be
+for him.
+
+"I've thought a lot about it," he went on, speaking more impersonally
+than she had thought he could. "It's going to be so awful for you. I'll
+be a fiend to you, I expect, when the hunger comes on. I suppose this is
+one of the advantages of an inebriates' home. They'd shove me in a
+straight jacket or give me drugs when I got like that. Out here, you
+see, there's only you. I can't control myself. I may hurt you."
+
+"You won't. If you do, I'll fight you, so you needn't worry on my
+account. I think it's all a silly convention that says a man in a temper
+mustn't thump a woman! If you want to thump me, do! But you'll probably
+get a much worse thumping than you give."
+
+He tried to be cheered by her, but could not. After awhile, she said:
+
+"Besides, if you do get well here--and you're going to. I don't doubt
+that for a moment--think how splendid it will be to know you've done it
+without the sort of restrictions, and treatments you'd get in a Home.
+Doing it just by your own strength is great, Louis."
+
+He saw that, and was happier, but he could not break out of his morbid
+introspection. Even after they had said good night and she was in the
+hinterland of sleep, he wakened her by sitting up and lighting a
+cigarette.
+
+"Can't you sleep?" she murmured drowsily.
+
+"I'm thinking about you," he said gloomily. "Marcella, I was a cad to
+bring you out here into the backblocks, just because I wanted to escape
+temptation. You need civilization just now--you need all the comforts of
+civilization--care and--Oh the million things a woman needs."
+
+"Oh, Louis, do be quiet!" she said, "all I need at this moment is a good
+sleep."
+
+He lay down again for ten minutes. Once more he started up, dragging the
+blanket right away from her.
+
+"How can you expect me to sleep? Marcella, what right had I to make you
+have a child? We've no money."
+
+"They don't cost anything," she said wide-awake now.
+
+He made a gesture of impatience.
+
+"We've no home--you've no attention."
+
+She sighed.
+
+"Listen to me, Louis, and then, my dear, for ever hold your peace. If
+the Lord, or whoever it is that's responsible for babies, had meant them
+to make women invalids, they'd never have been invented at all. Because
+there's no real room in the world for invalids. They'd have been grown
+on bushes, or produced by budding, wouldn't they? So just you forget it!
+The baby is my affair. It's nothing to do with you, and I positively
+refuse to be fussed over. I call it indecent to talk about ill-health.
+It's the one thing in life I'd put covers on and hide up. You must just
+think you've been to a factory and ordered a baby, and they said, 'Yes,
+sir--ready in six months from now, sir.' And then you walk away and call
+again in six months!"
+
+"Oh Lord!" he groaned, "why _did_ I marry a kid?"
+
+"You can talk about him as much as you like," she went on calmly, "the
+finished article. But I simply won't have you fussing about the details
+of his manufacture, and all his trimmings. And that's final."
+
+"But he's my child," protested Louis.
+
+"Not yet! In six months' time, perhaps. But you've enough worries, real
+worries, without making them up. There, dear heart, I don't mean to be
+cross with you. But you're such an idiot, and I'm so sleepy."
+
+They said good night once more, and she was falling asleep when he
+pulled her hair gently. He was frowning, with deep lines on his
+forehead.
+
+"But look here, old lady. If we're going right away from everywhere
+without any home, where's the child going to be born?"
+
+"On the battlefield," she murmured sleepily.
+
+He groaned, and once more his impatient twistings snatched the blanket
+away.
+
+"Oh damn the Keltic imagination! Why can't you get a grip on things and
+be practical?"
+
+Once more she was wide-awake, laughing with intense enjoyment.
+
+"I can't see what there is to laugh at," he protested. "Marcella, has it
+occurred to you what sort of heritage this kiddy of ours has?"
+
+Purposely misunderstanding him she flung out both arms wide, to embrace
+the whole of Australia, bush and forest, mountain, river and desert from
+sea to sea.
+
+"You know what I mean," he said desperately. "Me, his father, a
+drunkard, with drink in his family, and you the descendant of dozens of
+drunkards. And what's more, though you are not a drunkard, you're as mad
+as a hatter. What the devil is the poor little beggar going to do?"
+
+She was suddenly awake and very serious.
+
+"Listen, Louis," she said, holding his hands very tight. "I got that
+jerk-back most dreadfully in Sydney. Mrs. King was saying that the
+crowning mercy of her life was the fact that she hadn't any children.
+But it's a mad, bad, heretical sort of fear, the sort of heresy against
+nature that people ought to be burnt at the stake for believing! This
+child is no more your child and mine than Jesus was the child of Joseph
+the carpenter, or--or Romulus and Remus were the children of the
+wolf-mother. We've given him his flesh. We're his foster-parents, if you
+like. But God and Humanity are his father and mother. I found all this
+out one night on the roof in Sydney. He's a little bit of the spirit of
+God incarnate for awhile."
+
+"Keltic imagination," he said tentatively.
+
+"Very well, then. If you don't like it my way, I'll put it in the
+scientific way. You twitted me once for forgetting that biology applied
+to us two. Doesn't it apply here? Biology shows that nature's pushing
+out, paring down weaknesses and things that get in the way. If a
+drunkard--who is a weakness, a scar on the face of nature--was going to
+have drunkard babies, nature would make something happen to drunkards so
+that they can't have children at all...."
+
+"She does--in the last stages," murmured Louis.
+
+"That's a good thing, perhaps. But I don't believe in inheriting things
+like drinking. I don't believe my people inherited it at all. They
+inherited a sort of temperament, perhaps--and it was the sort of
+temperament that was accessible to drink-hunger. People talk about
+drinking, or other weaknesses being in their families. Drinking seems to
+be in most families nowadays, simply because people are slack and lazy
+and drinking is the easiest and least expensive weakness to pander to.
+But I certainly believe most hereditary weakness comes from legend or
+from imitation. It's idiotic nonsense. When you're a kiddie you hear all
+sorts of family talk about family characteristics; it becomes a sort of
+legend and you live up to it unconsciously. You see your parents doing
+things, and because you're with your parents a great deal just at the
+time when you're soft, like a jelly just poured into a mould, you get
+like your parents. And then it's too late--too late to alter, I mean,
+unless you take a fork and beat the jelly up again, or warm it on the
+fire and make it melt. I've read a lot about this, and I believe it's at
+the bottom of half the morbid stuff people write and talk about
+hereditary drunkards and criminals...."
+
+"But statistics," began Louis.
+
+"The worst of statistics is that people only quote the statistics that
+will prove their argument. They don't quote those for the other side. If
+drunkards' children become drunkards it's probably because their lives
+are so desperately miserable that they take the most obvious way of
+drowning the misery. Anyway, Louis--"
+
+"Lord, you are getting dictatorial, Marcella," he said.
+
+"Yes. I know. I mean to be, on this subject. I'll tell you this much, my
+dear. If you tell this child of ours that you're a drunkard, I'll shake
+the life out of you and then run away with him where he'll never see you
+again. And if he sees you drunk--! But he won't. Anyway, you won't be
+any more. And now, seriously, after all that speech, let's go to sleep."
+
+It was his turn to lie awake for hours this time, thinking and listening
+to her quiet breathing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+
+They started awake at dawn to the discordant laughter of a jackass in
+the gum tree above their heads. After a moment's struggle to locate
+herself Marcella sprang up and, running over the little plot of grass
+that fringed the creek, had another joyous swim. The morning was very
+still--uncannily still, and already hot. When they started out along
+the bank of the creek about six o'clock they felt the oppression almost
+unendurable, but in the motionless air the five trees that marked Loose
+End were very distinct, though rather like toy trees in a child's model
+garden.
+
+The depression of the night had gone; neither of them mentioned it; they
+talked of trivialities until they halted for lunch and drank a billy
+full of lukewarm tea.
+
+Louis had built a tent by spreading two of the blankets over bushes to
+keep off the sun-glare. But there was not much rest in the gasping heat
+and at last Marcella stood up, stretching her arms which the pack on her
+back was making stiff.
+
+"I wonder if it would matter if I took all my things off?" she began
+reflectively. Then she gasped out: "Why Louis, where are the five
+trees?"
+
+He sprang to his feet, staring about in bewilderment. The sun was above
+their heads, red and leaden; all round stretched the scorched scrub; the
+creek lay to their right but the five trees had vanished, swallowed up
+in a thick, dun-coloured fog.
+
+"Lord, we're in for a dust-storm, old lady!"
+
+"Will it hurt us?"
+
+He dilated on the horrors of dust-storms, and how they buried people and
+choked the water-holes. It grew dark, not a breath of wind stirred the
+scrub, not a bird moved or twittered in the few trees fringing the
+creek.
+
+"It may pass us by," said Louis. "They're often very localized. But if
+it gets us, be sure not to speak, or your mouth will be full of dust,
+and keep your eyes shut tight."
+
+They plodded on. Once Marcella started violently as a parakeet flew by
+with a brilliant flash of pink and green wings and a screaming cry. They
+found it difficult to breathe. It seemed as though all the air had been
+sucked up behind the advancing wall of dust and sand. One moment they
+were walking in clear, though breathless air; the next the storm was
+upon them, stinging and blinding and burning as the particles of dust
+were hurled with enormous velocity by the wind.
+
+Marcella gave a little cry of fear, and in the process got her mouth
+filled with dust as Louis had prophesied. Groping out blindly she found
+his hand, and they clung together. She would have given anything to be
+able to speak, for the horror of the ancient doom of Lashnagar rose up
+all round her and gripped her. But for more than an hour they battled in
+silence, unable to go either backwards or forwards. When finally the
+storm passed over, leaving them with parched throats and red-rimmed,
+aching eyes and blistered skin, it was dusk--the swift dusk of the
+sub-tropics.
+
+Marcella wanted to stay and wash the dust away in the creek; Louis,
+remembering the food shortage, insisted on pushing on. But when darkness
+fell they were going blindly in the direction they guessed to be right
+for they could see nothing of the five trees. Louis got depressed.
+Marcella felt tired enough to be depressed too, but had to keep his
+spirits up. She was just going to suggest that they should give up and
+rest supperless for the night when they heard a faint "coo-ee," and even
+more faintly the plodding sound of a horse's steps. Louis excitedly gave
+an answering shout, and in a few minutes they saw a horse looming
+through the darkness.
+
+"What a good job I've found you," came a boy's voice, and they saw a
+small figure standing beside them, reaching about to the horse's
+shoulder.
+
+"Were you looking for us?" said Marcella. "And are we found? We don't
+seem to be anywhere."
+
+"I was looking for the sheep. I came across twenty back there,
+suffocated with the dust. I don't know what he'll say when he knows! But
+it's a good thing I found you, else you'd have gone on all night."
+
+He turned then, and they followed him. He said nothing more until after
+about two miles of silent tramping they turned the corner of a high
+fence threaded with wonga-vine, and saw the lights of a homestead.
+Marcella felt she understood fire-and sun-worshippers. She could
+cheerfully have worshipped the twinkling light.
+
+A dog began to bark excitedly; half a dozen children, with one unsexed
+garment shaped like a bathing-dress each, turned out to stare at them.
+A man of fifty or thereabouts, with a thin, rather tragic face came
+along the low verandah built all along the front of the Homestead, and
+looked at them enquiringly.
+
+"Were you in that storm, chum?" he asked. Louis nodded.
+
+"Come right in! What, got a girl with you, too? Enough to finish you
+off! Mother!" he added, raising his voice, "Here's a young woman come to
+see us."
+
+A little meek woman in a faded blue frock came out on to the verandah.
+
+"Wherever have you come from?" she asked. They explained, and she seemed
+to do ten things at once, while they were speaking. Louis was
+irresistibly reminded of a music-hall _prestidigitateur_. She was giving
+directions for more chops to be put into the frying-pan, clean water to
+be fetched from the creek and put in a kerosene tin in "Jerry's room," a
+cloth laid over the bare boards of the already prepared table, and a tin
+of jam found from the store. Marcella felt at home at once. It was the
+simple, transparent welcome of Lashnagar again.
+
+The architecture of Loose End was entirely the invention of John Twist.
+It consisted of a chain of eight rooms. As the family grew, another room
+was leaned against the last one. One of the boys at Gaynor's had been
+heard to express the opinion that Loose End would, some day, reach right
+across the Continent.... The middle and largest room had two doors at
+opposite sides. It was the living-room. The others, which were either
+stores, bedrooms, or fowl-pens, had a window in one wall--glassless,
+formed of trellis--and a door in the other. A boarded platform ran right
+round the house to a depth of nine feet and the roof of the rooms,
+projecting over the platform, kept out rain and heat. There was much
+corrugated zinc and rough wood, many kerosene tins and boxes in the
+make-up of Loose End, but all the rooms were miraculously watertight.
+The room into which Marcella was shown was a sleeping-room and nothing
+more. There were three hammocks slung from wall to wall and one camp-bed
+still folded up. But while she was apparently talking to Marcella, Mrs.
+Twist whisked open a tin trunk, put a white linen cloth on the little
+table in the corner and, running out of the room, came back with a
+small, cracked mirror she had borrowed from her own room.
+
+When she came into the living-room, after strenuous work in removing the
+dust of travel, Marcella found that Louis had been taken possession of
+by some of the children, and been to the creek for a bathe. One of
+them--apparently a girl, since she was called Betty--had filled a jam
+tin with water and put in a bunch of bush roses; the big kerosene lamp
+hanging from the ceiling shone upon seven cropped heads, seven brown
+faces and fourteen bare, brown legs swinging from the bench on which the
+children sat. Fourteen bright eyes shining in faces polished with soap
+divided passionate interest between Marcella and the epoch-making pot of
+jam on the table. Mr. Twist told the guests to sit down; he made the tea
+while Mrs. Twist dished up an enormous tin full of chops and fried eggs,
+placing a china washing-basin full of potatoes beside them.
+
+"We need such a lot," she said with a laugh. "I did have an enamelled
+soup tureen I used for the potatoes, but the enamel chipped off a bit
+and I thought it might hurt the children if they swallowed it. So now we
+put the potatoes in the washing-basin and wash up in the tureen."
+
+While the meal was in progress they all talked at once. The children
+after their first shyness had worn off were entranced when they learnt
+that their guests had, only a few months ago, been in a real ship on the
+real sea. Marcella, in turn, was fascinated in watching the manoeuvre
+with which Jerry concealed the fact that there were not enough knives
+and forks to go round. He, being ten, was old and tactful; he cut up his
+meat and ate a few swift mouthfuls frowning into quietness the nudging
+and protesting brother at his side who wanted his innings with the
+knife.
+
+"We seem to be a bit short of usables," said Mrs. Twist, complacently
+drinking tea out of a jampot. "It's all along of that bush-fire last
+year, when we lost everything."
+
+"We ought to have got out our pannikins," said Marcella, "but we were so
+tired and hungry I couldn't think of anything but how nice it was to get
+here."
+
+"You can't think how glad I am to see you," said Mrs. Twist. "I haven't
+seen a woman since little Millie was born two years ago."
+
+There seemed a million things to talk about. When the last scrap of jam
+was satisfactorily disposed of, the seven children scattered in seven
+directions. Mrs. Twist and Marcella washed the dishes; Mr. Twist and
+Louis smoked on the verandah. A great collie walked sedately into the
+room and looked at the cleared table reproachfully. Betty appeared with
+an air of magic and found him a plateful of food. The children seemed to
+be attached to their mother by invisible wires. At one minute their
+voices could be heard, shrieking and calling to each other. The next,
+when she went along the verandah with Mrs. Twist, most of them were in
+their hammocks, falling asleep.
+
+"I wish they were a bit older," sighed the mother, at the door of their
+room. Two merry voices giggled in the darkness.
+
+"That makes you older, too," said Marcella softly.
+
+"They're so many to feed, and there's only Jerry can do much to help
+father yet. We've thirty acres of gorse to clear--and it seems
+impossible to get at it. It ought to have been done two years ago, but
+the Government have given us grace when we explained about the
+bush-fire. We lost a thousand sheep then, you know. And the Homestead
+was mostly burnt down."
+
+They went along towards the men.
+
+"It's a hard life," said Mrs. Twist uncomplainingly. "But the children
+are well and happy."
+
+That night they talked, sitting out on the verandah, the black wall of
+the darkness in front of them, the fire-glow behind. A hot, steaming
+rain had begun to fall, following on the wind of the dust-storm. It
+dripped softly and gently, bringing no coolness with it. Mr. Twist
+talked of the slices of bad luck that had bowed his shoulders, lined his
+face, and all but broken his spirit. The two women talked softly. Jerry,
+who, being almost a man, had been allowed to stay up, brought out his
+old gramophone. Many notes were merely croaks; but "Oh, Dry those Tears"
+and "Rock of Ages" were quite recognizable. He was very proud of the
+"Merry Widow" waltz that had been sent to him from his uncle in England,
+and kept repeating it until he was ordered off to bed. Presently, in the
+darkness, Marcella found herself telling Mrs. Twist about the coming
+child.
+
+"Where are you making for, kid?" asked Mrs. Twist, who seemed sorry for
+her.
+
+"Anywhere. We were told there was a lot of clearing going on up here, so
+I thought we might both get a job. I didn't want my baby born in the
+city."
+
+They talked no more that night, for Mr. Twist said it was bedtime. They
+slept dreamlessly in their hammocks until five o'clock, when they were
+wakened by Scot the collie who, planting his forepaws on each
+window-sill barked furiously until he was answered by a shout from
+within.
+
+The sky was grey and sullen, the hot rain was still falling; grass
+seemed to have sprung up from the sun-baked soil in the night and the
+slant-set leaves of the five gums smiled as they slid big drops on to
+their roots. The leaves of the wonga-vine that sheltered the rather
+scanty beds of the food-garden looked riotously alive and green;
+nasturtiums and sunflowers sent out by the uncle in England glowed like
+little gold lamps seen through a fog.
+
+Breakfast was a repetition of fried mutton and flapjacks and tea. As
+soon as the children had cleared it away the smallest ones settled down
+to write on slates long lines of pothooks and hangers. Two of the boys
+spelt words laboriously from ancient "readers," and Jerry set out to
+look for the lost sheep again. Marcella was packing her swag a little
+sadly. She wished they could stay at Loose End. Obviously it looked as
+though Loose End could not support its own family without the burden of
+another. But Mr. Twist thought differently.
+
+"What do you say to stopping here, ma?" he said, looking at Marcella
+through the trellis. "I've been talking to your boss and he's willing if
+you say the word."
+
+Marcella straightened herself up and looked at him.
+
+"I'd like nothing better," she told him simply.
+
+"Right-o, then. That's settled," he said, and they discussed details.
+Rather shamefacedly he offered them five pounds a month and rations. He
+said they were worth more, but he could not afford it. If they liked to
+throw in their lot with his and try to make Loose End's run of bad luck
+change, he would share the good when it came. They accepted his offer
+without discussion. Then he asked if they would live at the Homestead or
+in a shepherd's hut about half a mile away, near the lake.
+
+"It's not a bad little place. I had two shepherds before the sheep got
+drowned. Then it was no use them staying. I don't think there's much in
+the way of furniture--"
+
+They looked at each other. In each other's eyes they saw a plea to be
+alone together in their new world, and said, in a breath, that they
+would live in the hut.
+
+"Oh kid, I'm so glad," said Mrs. Twist when the men went off to see what
+damage the dust-storm had done. Marcella was extraordinarily happy as
+she was taught what to do in the Homestead.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+
+The hut was on the edge of a great patch of gorse that Mr. Twist said
+stretched for twenty acres or more, right to the limit of his holding.
+It was giant gorse, quite unlike the mild edition of it found in
+England. In many places it towered above the hut and the stems were
+almost as thick as tree-trunks, while the spines played havoc with
+clothes and skin. It was burnt dry now, by the sun. In the cooler
+weather, Mr. Twist said, the whole place was a golden blaze of bloom.
+
+The cottage consisted of three rooms, built on the same plan as the
+Homestead. The middle room was a sort of kitchen. There was a big table
+and a bench of planed wood.
+
+"There isn't a grate," said Mr. Twist, "they got their rations up at the
+house, you see." The absence of a fire-place did not trouble Marcella.
+She had often cooked on Wullie's open fire at Lashnagar, and Louis
+quickly explained that he would make a bush oven outside. Neither of the
+rooms leaning against the kitchen had any furniture, but Mrs. Twist
+seemed to have laid in a whole ship's stores of navy hammocks, which she
+said they could have until Louis had carpentered bed for them. There
+were hundreds of very fat, furry spiders who crawled about solemnly and
+fell with heavy bodies down swift silken threads as Marcella opened the
+door of the bedroom.
+
+For the next few days they certainly did not earn their wages. They were
+like two children with a new doll's house, and at the end of the week
+the hut was unrecognizable. Louis, unskilfully busy with saw, hammer and
+nails put up a shelf for the box of books they were going to get from
+Mrs. King's as soon as someone went into Cook's Well to take a letter.
+Marcella wished a little that she had some money to buy things for her
+house, but it was the sort of wish she found it easy to conquer and
+when, in a spirit of mischief she took the tar brush with which Louis
+had been caulking the sides of the hut, and tarred CASTLE LASHCAIRN on
+the corrugated roof, she _saw_ Castle Lashcairn rising there.
+
+"After all, imaginary castles are the best," she told Louis after two
+days spent in clearing away dust and spiders, and limewashing the
+interior. "It only needs imaginary cleaning."
+
+He was surveying his new white shelf on which the matronly Mrs. Beeton
+seemed to incline towards the sober black New Testament and give a cold
+shoulder to the lean-looking "Questing Cells" and the slim "Parsifal."
+He had made and patented a very wonderful reflector for their little
+lamp by cutting and bending a kerosene tin in such a way that it
+mirrored six times the light inside. Sitting out on the verandah he
+thought out the details of an arm-chair to be made out of a barrel Mr.
+Twist had given him. They sat on the edge of the verandah, their legs
+swinging. He was smoking--very distastefully--a pipe because there was
+plenty of strong shag at the Homestead but no cigarettes. Marcella had
+been watching him; it had amazed her to see how much more calmly he had
+taken the cigarette famine than she had guessed possible.
+
+"If I can go on like this, dearie," he said at last, "there'll be no
+more bogeys. I've been busy--and very happy this last week. If I'm kept
+busy--"
+
+"You'll be kept busy," she said, smiling. "When we've cleared the twenty
+acres of gorse it's all to be ploughed and planted. And when that's done
+and there isn't a single other thing to do, we'll start to tunnel a hole
+through the middle of the earth to Lashnagar, like they did in Jules
+Verne's book."
+
+"I'm keeping my body occupied," he went on slowly. "The point is, will
+that satisfy my brain, and all of me?"
+
+She looked down the little slope on the top of which Castle Lashcairn
+stood. The five gum trees stretched up to the cloudless night sky; a few
+hundred yards away the lake glimmered, star-reflecting and still. To the
+left the lamp of the Homestead glowed, and "Oh Dry Those Tears" started
+to groan out. Marcella waited for the line that almost sounded like a
+collection of bass "brrrrrs" and then she spoke.
+
+"If you can forget yourself, my dear--get swallowed up," she said
+gently, and a silence fell between them.
+
+The days drew into weeks. Castle Lashcairn grew more and more beautiful;
+the books arrived from Sydney and kept sentry on the white shelf.
+Several of her unnecessary frocks Marcella made into cushions stuffed
+with dried lucerne which made a most interesting crackling noise when
+one leaned against them. Louis spent most of his Sundays in making a cot
+for his son but his fatal lack of thoroughness was a drawback, for it
+seemed to come to pieces as quickly as he got it together. Marcella
+looked after the fowls and the cows; she did most of the cooking at the
+Homestead; she got the children beyond the hanger and pothook stage of
+writing and filled their minds, hitherto worried by family cares, with
+legend and fairy-tale. She wrote often to Dr. Angus, and he sent her
+books and garden seeds. All the time she and Louis never found a moment
+in which to be idle; about eleven o'clock every day she took his lunch
+across the clearing to him; she collaborated a good deal with Mrs.
+Beeton in making various ambitious dishes for him, but as they were
+almost entirely made of mutton, "standard" flour and eggs, there was not
+much variety. When the fried sheep had lived too long before being
+killed, or been kept too long after death, they spent considerable time
+looking at the pretty pictures in the cookery book: Marcella told of
+Wullie's feasts in the beach-hut. Louis remembered restaurant
+celebrations. But they were always too hungry to care much what they
+ate; the most leathery damper, the most difficult mutton was pleasant
+eaten out of doors in the faint smoke of the gorse fires.
+
+During the afternoons she helped with the gorse grubbing. Before the
+great bushes could be approached they had to be fired, and she loved to
+watch the golden blaze flare swiftly to the sky, leaving a pall of grey
+smoke through which the carbonized gorse branches shone gold for a
+moment in a fairy tracery before crumbling to white ash on the ground.
+Then they had to take pickaxes and mattocks, chisels and spades to chop
+down the parent stem and uproot the smallest leader from the roots.
+Gorse is very tenacious of life. A root of only a few inches will spring
+up to a great tree in an incredibly short time, especially on virgin
+soil fertilized by many burnings.
+
+They had faces perpetually blackened by smoke. Marcella worked with an
+oilskin bathing-cap sent by Mrs. King, over her hair; she wore an old
+blue overall on which the spines of the gorse had worked havoc. And
+still she would not be ill to fall in with Louis's preconceived notions;
+living an absolutely normal, rather tough life, hardened by her
+father's Spartanism, she found that a natural process made very little
+difference to her. To Louis's real distress she swam in the lake every
+morning; what he could not understand was that she had scarcely, even
+yet, awakened to consciousness of her body. Once or twice in her queer
+ecstasies, once or twice in Sydney the sleep within her had stirred and
+stretched and opened her eyes; from the force of the stirring and
+stretching she had gathered an impression of something immensely strong.
+But it had not yet risen and walked about her life yet.
+
+One day she went across the clearing to Louis, through the smoke wreaths
+that were being gently swayed to and fro by a soft wind. In a blue shirt
+open at the neck, shewing a triangle of brown chest, he looked very
+different from the effeminate Louis of the _Oriana_. Just as she reached
+him, looking at him instead of the rough ground, all rutted with uptorn
+roots, she slipped and almost fell. In an instant his arm, taut and
+strong, was round her. She laughed and drew away from him.
+
+"I was looking at you coming along here, Marcella," he said. "Do you
+know what you remind me of?"
+
+"Dinner?" she said, sitting down to unpack the basket of food.
+
+"No--a Maori woman."
+
+"Louis! A savage?"
+
+"They aren't savages. But after all, savage doesn't mean anything but
+wild, untamed. You're that, you know, old lady. Untamed even by
+motherhood. And I'd have thought that would have tamed even Petruchio's
+handful. But this Maori woman I was thinking about was in the King
+Country in New Zealand--You know, I'd read 'The Blue Lagoon' and thought
+it a bit overdrawn."
+
+"What is it?" she interrupted, pointing to the food imperiously.
+
+"It's about a girl and a boy living on a desert island, and she has a
+baby without turning a hair. Remembering my nerve-racking experience of
+maternity in the Borough I thought Stacpoole was rather talking without
+his book. But when I saw this Maori I felt like sending him my humble
+apologies by wireless. The tribe was trekking. I was with them for
+months, you know, in the Prohibition Country. My diagnostic eye had
+foreseen a birthday and, as a matter of fact, I was getting rather funky
+and wishing I had Hermann's 'Midwifery' to swot up. I saw myself the
+hero of the occasion, don't you know, dashing in to save her life, miles
+from civilization. One morning we were camping by a hot spring for the
+women to do some cooking and washing. My patient disappeared with an old
+thing we called Aunt Maggie. Presently we trekked again, and I was
+feeling horribly uneasy about her, when I nearly dropped. There she was,
+sailing along in the midst of the other women, with the kid in her arms,
+looking as cool as a cucumber! Lord, I did feel small!"
+
+He laughed reminiscently, and lighted his pipe.
+
+"It seems right to me," she said, looking away through the drifting
+smoke. "Why should the coming of life mean pain for someone?"
+
+"Don't know, old lady. But it does. I say, how do you think I'm getting
+on?"
+
+They looked across the clearing and felt rather proud.
+
+"I love it," he said simply, "taking nature in hand a bit--she's a
+wicked old harridan, isn't she? A naughty old lady gone wrong! Look at
+that gorse! We'll have spuds here in no time, and then, in a few years,
+wheat. I feel I'm making a dint on the face of the earth at last. In a
+hundred year's time, when I'm forgotten, the effect of these few months'
+work will be felt. I say, am I talking hot air?"
+
+"Not a bit. But let's do a bit more--Jerry calls it scene-shifting."
+
+She tossed the last piece of cake to an inquisitive kookaburra who had
+been watching the meal optimistically, with bright eyes and nodding
+head. It was a triumph, this cake--in several ways. The stationmaster at
+Cook's Wall had built his "bosker hotel" at last, and had made it a
+store at which one could buy fruit, jam, sugar and various luxuries.
+Louis had been in twice to the store lately, and had actually remembered
+the seed-cake on the _Oriana_ when he saw caraway seeds in the store. He
+volunteered the information that there was whisky for sale at the store,
+but did not mention whether he had wanted to buy it or not.
+
+He got up, taking the mattock. Marcella began to fight a great stem
+running along the ground.
+
+"Devilish stuff," he said, turning back to look at her. "See that little
+patch over there?"
+
+She nodded, following his eyes. A brisk little gorse bush was bursting
+from the ground. A few feet away another was keeping it company.
+
+"Devilish stuff!" he repeated. "Just like a cancer--in pathology. You
+chop the damned thing out, root and branch, and there it pops out again,
+miles away from where it started. Look at that piece there."
+
+He attacked the little plant with rather unnecessary severity and dug up
+a thin, tough, cord-like root which he threw on the fire savagely.
+
+"Louis, do you remember that schoolmaster on the _Oriana_?" she asked
+suddenly, staring thoughtfully at the long, thin leaders.
+
+"Oh, that ass who sat in my chair? Yes. Why?"
+
+"He told me a fearful thing about cancer."
+
+"He would--blighted idiot. What was it?"
+
+She hesitated a minute.
+
+"He said he'd read in some book--he was always reading queer books--that
+cancer was an elemental that had taken possession of one's body. A
+horribly preying, parasitic life--feeding on one's body--Ugh, it made me
+feel sick! And it's so cruel, really, to say things like that. He seemed
+to suggest that elementals were something unclean that could not come
+except to unclean people. And--mother died of cancer. And mother was
+very beautiful."
+
+"Well, you can tell the footling ass from me that he's a thumping liar.
+Elemental grandmother! Let me tell you this much--cancers come from one
+thing only, and that's irritation--injury, often. Corsets, sometimes--or
+a blow--If I were to thump you--"
+
+He laughed, and turned away.
+
+"Yes, I know," she said quietly. She was thinking of that stormy scene
+between her father and the two doctors when the faint smell of
+chloroform crept round her at the farm while she waited outside on the
+landing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+
+For nearly five months peace stole round Castle Lashcairn. Marcella was
+almost incredibly happy and so was Louis. Mrs. Twist and Marcella held
+long consultations about the baby, but Marcella, afraid of worrying
+Louis, tried to make him forget all about it. Even when, as time went
+on, she really began to feel tired and unable to work with him, she
+fought her tiredness indignantly; she was terrified lest he should get
+"raked up" and go along to the hotel for solace. So she hid everything
+from him, arranging all details with Mrs. Twist who promised to "see her
+through it." There was no nurse within a hundred miles; there was a
+dreadful old woman who had brought several bottles of squareface with
+her when she attended Mrs. Twist at Millie's birth. They decided to
+dispense with her services.
+
+Marcella sent money to Mrs. King to buy things for her in Sydney. They
+spent a whole Sunday evening making out the list. Many of the things he
+had learnt, from textbooks, to associate with babies, Mrs. Twist thought
+unnecessary, but Marcella, with no basic opinion of her own, let him
+have his way, and one day in May he took Gryphon, the Twist pony, to
+fetch the packages from the station.
+
+He was to be away one night--starting at four in the morning he would
+rest at the hotel for the night and start back next morning. That night
+Marcella lay long awake, thinking about him. She was vaguely anxious;
+when she fell asleep she dreamed that he came home to Castle Lashcairn
+drunk. He was talking French--his eyes were wild, his mouth loose and
+slobbering, his tongue bitter.
+
+She started up in fright and rolled out of the hammock.
+
+"No--no. It couldn't happen again. It couldn't. We could never live now,
+if we were to get miserable like that after we've been so happy. He's
+so--so clean, now. He can't get dirty again."
+
+She could not sleep after that, and walked down to the lake in the
+moonlight. She was really feeling ill. Louis's lectures and diagrams and
+descriptions of "midder" cases at the hospital sickened and frightened
+her. Mrs. Twist, with the average woman's unscientific and morbid
+interest in such illness, sickened her still more.
+
+The moonlight was very bright; the weather was warm, for May. Louis had
+begged her not to swim now. She had given in to him rather than worry
+him, but a sudden impulse to do what she thought pleasant without
+troubling him came to her, and she slipped out of her nightgown quickly.
+The lake lay at her feet, a shimmering pool of silver, almost without
+ripples. It lapped very gently against her feet, bringing back the
+softly lapping waters of Lashnagar on spring mornings. It was adorably,
+tinglingly cold; she forgot the dream in the exhilaration and gave a
+little cry of rapture as she waded further out. Then, without warning, a
+ghost was in the water beside her. She stared, and knew that it was her
+own reflection. With a little cry she hurried back to land, her heart
+thumping wildly as she pulled on her nightgown over her wet body with
+trembling hands.
+
+"How horrible I look!" she whispered. "He mustn't know I look as awful
+as that!"
+
+The next day she waited for him, anxious to unpack the thrilling parcel
+from Sydney, but he did not come, and all the night she sat waiting,
+afraid that he had met with some accident. If someone had come, then,
+and told her he was drunk she would not have believed it. It seemed to
+her just as unreal a thing as last night's dream.
+
+But at four o'clock in the morning as she sat on the verandah, half
+nodding with red-rimmed, heavy eyes, she saw him come stumbling along,
+holding on to the pony's neck.
+
+She went out to meet him, knowing just exactly what she was going to
+meet. And she felt frozen with horror. The average man coming home drunk
+is not a tragedy. He is merely amiably ridiculous. To Louis, after all
+his fights and all his hopes, tragedy had certainly come, but he was too
+drunk to know it yet. He began to bluff and lie just as usual.
+
+"Ought be 'shamed, sending a chap thirty--thirty--thirty miles f'r lot
+fem'--fem'--fripp--fripp--fripperies! Sick an' tired, stuck in with a
+wom' day an' night f'r months. 'Nough make any man k-k-kick."
+
+She did not speak, and he went on in the same old way, French words
+peppering the halting English; she could have shut her eyes and fancied
+she was back in the city again, or on the ship.
+
+He muttered and shouted alternately all the way to the cottage; there
+was a meal waiting but he could not eat; sitting on the edge of the
+verandah, he ordered her to light him a cigarette. She knew there were
+none in the house and felt in his coat pocket, guessing he had bought
+some. She was not really unhappy. She was too sick, too frozen to feel
+yet at all.
+
+"Come out my pock'," he growled, hitting her arm away fiercely, his
+teeth clenched. "Aft' my money, eh? Think you're winning, don't you? In
+league with the Pater against me. Think you'll always have me under your
+thumb, nev' giv' free hand. There's not a man on God's earth would stand
+it, damned if there is--tied to wom' apron strings all the time!"
+
+"Very well, get your own cigarette. I'm going to bed."
+
+"Y-you w-w-would," he said, and laughed shrilly. "Think you've got me in
+blasted bush, work like blast' galley slave while you skulk in bed."
+
+"Oh don't be such an idiot, Louis. You'd better go to bed. I'm tired of
+you," she said, going past him into the bedroom.
+
+"Ta' my boots off," he grunted, trying to reach his feet and
+overbalancing. "If you can't make yourself 'tractive to a man, you can
+be useful. Nice damned freak you are f'r any man t' come home to! Nev'
+trouble to dress please me--like Vi'let."
+
+Marcella began to laugh hysterically. It was uncanny how his opinion of
+her appearance coincided with her own.
+
+"Wom' your condish' no damn goo' t' any man!" he mumbled. She went past
+him, into the room and left him. It was the first time she had made no
+attempt to soothe and sober him and bring him back. She felt impatient
+with him, and horribly lonely and frightened of being with him, horribly
+longing to run to someone and be comforted. But she was just as anxious
+to hide the trouble from the Twists and knew that she must bear it
+alone.
+
+She cried for hours, completely disheartened, longing passionately to go
+to him and ask him to assure her it was only a dream, and he really was
+cured as she had imagined. But at last she fell asleep, too proud to go
+and ask him to come to bed again, guessing that he would sleep in the
+living-room.
+
+She wakened early and started up with full recollection of what had
+happened. In the light of morning, after a sleep, she was sick with
+herself for having forgotten her theory that he was an ill man; she had
+let personal annoyance stop her from trying to help him. Brimming over
+with love and pity and self-disgust she ran out to find him, for she
+guessed he would be penitent now, and in black despair.
+
+He was not there. On the verandah was a "squareface" bottle, empty.
+Wakening from a drugged sleep in the grey morning, his mouth ablaze, his
+brain muddled and full of resentment against her, he had remembered the
+gin he had brought home with him; there was not much left in the bottle.
+He drank it, full of resentment against it for making him so unhappy. He
+knew that ten pounds--two months' pay--was in the cigarette-box on the
+shelf. It was Mr. Twist's birthday next Sunday and they had decided to
+give it back to him to buy tools. Louis remembered it; fighting every
+inch of the way across the floor with the strength that the last few
+months had put into him, he took it out of the box. Then, a thousand
+devils at his heels, he dashed off into the Bush on his thirty-mile mad
+tramp.
+
+It was a week before she saw him again, and all the time she was aching
+to follow him. But she knew she could not walk so far and, with a stern
+cussedness typical of her father, she went on with Louis's work, not
+mentioning to the Twists that he was away, though they all wondered what
+had happened to him. She burned the gorse as though it were whisky,
+almost savagely. She tore at the roots in the ground as though they were
+the fierce desires of life to be ruthlessly uprooted, smashed out, burnt
+to ashes. She was scarcely conscious of emotion; the smoke got into her
+eyes and blinded her; stooping to dig made her feel faint and ill, but
+in her desperate misery she attacked the work as even Louis in his best
+days had never done. It was not until she had been at it nearly a week
+that Mrs. Twist found her out, and came across the clearing to her,
+looking indignant.
+
+"Want to kill yourself, and have the child killed too kid?" she cried
+before she reached her. "What the nation do you think you're doing?"
+
+"I won't be paid for work that isn't done," said Marcella ungraciously.
+She was so sore, so aching that she knew to her disgust, that she would
+be crying weakly on Mrs. Twist's shoulder if she let herself be even
+commonly polite.
+
+"Come on, kid, and have a cup of tea with me," said Mrs. Twist gently.
+"I know what it is to feel as if you could chew anyone's head off. It
+always takes me like that the last few weeks. Where's your boss?"
+
+"He--Oh, I don't know. I've got to do his work. I daren't let him think
+he can shirk like this! He'll never get back again if I make him think
+it doesn't matter. Mrs. Twist, I'm tired of it!" she cried with sudden
+fierce intensity. "Never, never, never for a minute dare I be tired and
+weak; why I daren't even _think_ tired for a minute. Always I've to be
+strong for him! Oh--" she suddenly choked and, flinging her spade aside,
+sat down clumsily on the ground, her face buried in her hands. "If only
+Father could come alive for a few hours--and thump him!"
+
+Mrs. Twist made no enquiries about Louis; she had guessed a good deal
+and, by excessive tact, got Marcella to go across to the Homestead with
+her and rest for the remainder of the afternoon. But she was back at her
+work again next morning grimly determined to show Louis that if he
+shirked his job she would do it for him.
+
+That night he came home--pale and haggard, unshaven and unwashed. He had
+spent the ten pounds until he had just enough left to buy two bottles of
+whisky. With these he had wandered off on the home road, to sink to
+sleep when he could go no further and waken to another solitary orgy.
+
+She had been working till after dark, in spite of Mrs. Twist's
+remonstrances, to which she answered rudely and impatiently. At last the
+elder woman thought it less wearing to the girl to leave her alone; she
+guessed that she would faint with physical weariness before she had got
+over her mental misery. Louis could see the red glow in the sky for the
+last two miles of his dazed tramp; it led him homewards, muttering to
+himself about a pillar of fire and a pillar of cloud. He looked into the
+house and saw that she was not there. He had not known, till he saw the
+empty rooms, with her frock hanging over the hammock, her nightgown
+neatly folded on the shelf, her books and a pannikin half full of cold
+tea in the kitchen, how much he had counted on seeing her, how he had
+hungered for her, deep down, during all the nightmare week. He felt too
+ashamed to go to the Homestead to look for her; then it occurred to him
+that she would be across the clearing.
+
+And he met her, half-way. She was coming along in the dull glow of the
+dying fire, the pickaxe over her shoulder. She looked different to him;
+perhaps his eyes were distorted, perhaps the fire-glow making leaping
+shadows caused the difference; but she walked heavily, wearily, without
+the thrilling, young spring of swift movements that made her such an
+exhilaration to him. He wanted to run across the clearing, lift her in
+his arms and charm away the tiredness; swiftly on top of that emotion
+came the realization that she was walking wearily partly because she had
+been doing his work, partly because her spirit was heavy and sick. He
+felt sick with himself for having hurt her; he resented the misery his
+conscience was causing him: swiftly he found himself resenting the
+ungainliness of her figure which, in his morbid mood, seemed his fault
+too. He hated the unconscious reproach she gave him as she came along,
+stumbling a little, carrying the pickaxe.
+
+He had finished his last spot of whisky at noon and had not slept since;
+he was worn and tired and frayed, even more than she was. He was acutely
+uncomfortable for want of soap and water and food.
+
+He dashed across the space between them, his eyes blazing madly, and she
+looked up, hearing his steps, seeing the blaze of his eyes, the
+tenseness of his clenched hands.
+
+"Damn you--damn you!" he cried, "playing the blasted Christian martyr.
+Walking like that, to make people think I've made you tired!"
+
+She stared at him, and her eyes filled with tears. She had got to the
+stage of longing to see him so much that she did not care whether he
+were drunk or sober. Then the ridiculousness of playing a role in the
+Bush at ten o'clock at night, struck her, and she laughed--a rather
+cracked laugh. He came close to her, all flaming with hate. He noticed
+the blue shadows under her eyes, smelt the fire on her clothes. She
+recoiled from the whisky on his breath, which, from association with
+her childhood's horrors, always reduced her to a state of unreasoning
+terror.
+
+"Oh blast you--too fine to come near me, are you? You were damned glad
+to pick me up, anyway--and so you ought to be, with your drunken old
+scab of a father!"
+
+She, in her turn, blazed and tingled; murder was in the ends of her
+fingers that quivered towards him. Luckily she had dropped the pickaxe.
+But her movements were slow, and his quick, and he got behind her in an
+instant. Next moment, without realizing what he was doing, he pushed her
+violently. She stumbled a few steps and fell heavily against the blunt
+end of the pickaxe. For an instant he stood looking at her; the next
+moment with a hoarse cry he was kneeling beside her.
+
+"Oh my darling," he cried. "I told you I'd kill you in the end! I told
+you the damn stuff was making a madman of me."
+
+The whisky vanished from him like the flashing of lightning. Lifting her
+in his arms he carried her homewards and laid her down on the verandah.
+Frantic with fear he was going to fetch Mrs. Twist when she sat up
+rather shakily and looked at him.
+
+"I suppose that's what you've been expecting me to do--faint all over
+the place--swounds and vapours," she said, laughing faintly. "Louis, it
+was a horrible feeling."
+
+"Marcella," he sobbed, kissing her hands, kneeling beside her desperate
+in his self-abasement. "I thought I'd killed you."
+
+"You're not much of a doctor if you don't know I'd take much more
+killing than that," she said. "And I wanted to kill you for a minute, so
+we're equal."
+
+In a torrent all his explanations came pouring out. He had thought the
+whisky hunger was killed; he had tried to test his certainty and had
+failed.
+
+"I got cocky, old girl. I swanked to myself! I thought I'd got it beat
+and I'd just go and have one whisky at the Station Hotel to satisfy my
+own conviction. But when I'd had one I couldn't help it. I seemed to be
+outside myself, watching myself for the first two or three. I was
+interested. I kept thinking 'I'll tell Marcella she need not be
+frightened any more. I can drink two or three whiskies and not be a
+bally Blue Ribboner any more. We need not be banished to the Bush for
+the rest of our lives to keep me out of danger.' Then I got muddled and
+quite lost grip. It had a sort of chemical effect, you know. I hated you
+for keeping me from whisky that was making me feel so fine and jolly
+again. I felt I'd been a bit of a prig lately. I loved the stationmaster
+and a few manganese miners who came in. In fact, I just wallowed again.
+I came home hating you. I didn't come to see you. I came for money. And
+that's all. The whole thing's hopeless."
+
+"It was my fault this time, Louis. I went to bed and left you. If I'd
+not been so proud and so huffy I'd have kept you."
+
+"Yes, but only for a time, dear. I saw it all in a flash to-night when
+you lay there and I thought you were dead. Marcella, no savage would
+have done that--hurting you just now."
+
+"What rubbish! If you hadn't done it to me I would have done it to you,"
+she said easily.
+
+"Don't you see how hopeless it is? The very first time I go near whisky,
+I want it. And this happens. I was a madman to-night. It means that
+we've got to stick here for the rest of our lives. I daren't even go to
+the store to fetch things for you when you're ill. I have to hide in a
+hole like a fox when the dogs are after it."
+
+"After all, is it so very horrible here, Louis?" she whispered. "I think
+it's been heaven. Our Castle, and the clearing--and next month my seeds
+that Dr. Angus sent will be coming up. And the baby, Louis! Just think
+of the millions of things we've got!"
+
+But he knew better than she did the torment of his weakness and refused
+to be comforted. He was near suicide that night; he too had been happy,
+happier than ever in his tormented, unfriended life before. He had the
+terrible torture of knowing that it was he who had brought the cloud
+into their sky; he had the terror before him, with him, of knowing that
+he would keep on bringing clouds, all the more black because they both
+so loved the sunshine.
+
+And she, when she undressed, sick and faint but comforted with the
+thought that once more a fight was over, blew the light out quickly so
+that he should not see the ugly purple mark of the pickaxe.
+
+She usually slept with her nightgown unfastened so that the cool winds
+should blow over her through the trellis of the window. To-night she
+muffled herself up tightly, and when he came in from a strenuous ten
+minutes in the lake, feeling once more as though she had sent him to dip
+in Jordan, she pretended to be asleep. Seeing her so unusually wrapped
+up, he thought she was cold, and fetched a blanket to cover her. She
+dared not yield to her impulse to hold out her arms to him and draw his
+aching head on to her breast for fear the bruise should grieve him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+
+Once more came peace, so sunlit and tender that it seemed as though they
+had wandered into a valley of Avilion where even the echoes of storms
+could not come, and doves brooded softly. They talked sometimes now of
+the coming of their son; Louis, once he had got over his conventional
+horror of such a proceeding, said that she would be as safe in Mrs.
+Twist's care, with him hovering in the background, as though she had
+gone to the nursing home in Sydney, as he had suggested at first.
+
+"I shall funk awfully to know you're going through it, old lady," he
+told her. "You know nothing about it yet. I've seen this thing happen
+dozens of times, and it's much worse than you imagine."
+
+She decided, privately, to spare him the misery of it all by sending him
+off into the Bush on an errand for Mr. Twist as soon as she was taken
+ill. But her scheme fell through. All one day of blue and silver in
+June, a winter's day with keen exhilaration in the air, she stayed with
+him in the clearing, burning the branches as he hewed them down. She
+felt scarcely alive. Her body was a queer, heavy, racked and
+apprehensive thing down on the ground. She watched it slowly walking
+about, dragging faggots of gorse fastened together by the swag-straps
+which she loosened as she cast the branches cracking and creaking into
+the flames. Her mind was restless, a little fey. Louis, seeing something
+of her uncertainty, stopped work early, and they walked home slowly over
+the cleared land that was now being ploughed.
+
+"I feel proud of it, don't you?" she said, looking back. He nodded,
+watching her anxiously.
+
+As she was making the tea pain, quite unbearable, seized her. She got
+out on the verandah so that he should not see her. After a while it
+passed and, looking white, she came back into the room.
+
+"I was going across to the Homestead to-night. Jerry's got a new record
+and wants to try it on us. But I feel tired. Will you ask Mrs. Twist to
+come and have a gossip?" she said casually.
+
+The pain came back, quite astonishing her. She had heard that it was
+horrible, but had not expected it to be quite so horrible as this. Her
+mind had only room for one thought--that Louis must not suspect--or, in
+his anxiety; he would lose grip on himself and make away for Cook's
+Wall and oblivion. Going into her bedroom she took pencil and paper and
+wrote a note to Mrs. Twist, who understood the plot and was ready to
+invent some lost sheep for Jerry and Louis to hunt up.
+
+"Can you come up? I think it's happening to me. Please send Louis away,"
+she wrote, and folded the note into an envelope which she fastened down.
+That moment she found herself crying out without her own volition. She
+slammed the door and lay down on the floor inside it, to barricade it
+against Louis. She heard his steps coming along the verandah and
+clenched her hands fiercely over her mouth.
+
+"Did you cry out then, dear?" came his voice as he pushed at the door.
+Feeling an obstruction he pushed all the harder: she could not speak,
+but he took in at a glance her twisted figure and as he bent over her,
+shaking with fright, she caught at his hands.
+
+"I thought I'd do it all by myself, but I can't bear it," she gasped.
+
+"Oh my darling," he cried, lifting her in his arms and holding her
+tight. "How long has this been going on?"
+
+It was some time before she was able to speak. In the bleak aloneness of
+pain she was very glad of his presence.
+
+"All day--only I didn't want you to know," she said. He groaned.
+
+"For fear it'd bowl me over? Oh God--"
+
+"I'd a plot to send you away. But I'll be glad to know you're not very
+far! Will you go for Mrs. Twist, Louis? It will be back in a minute."
+
+Kissing her, he ran out across the paddock. In that moment he felt he
+would cheerfully die for her; it was not her illness that made him so
+tender, so unusually exalted. He had not it in his nature to regard pain
+as other than interesting. But the rending thought that she had suffered
+alone rather than risk his getting drunk--that jerked him. He felt he
+could beat any weakness that night, as he recalled her eyes, trying to
+smile at him through pain, her hands as they clung to his for help. He
+lived a thousand lives during the next few hours until, at two o'clock,
+he heard the heart-stopping cry of a newborn child that brought stuffy
+London nights in the slums back to his mind for an instant until Mrs.
+Twist said, with an air of personal pride, that it was a boy.
+
+And then Louis cracked again; kneeling beside Marcella, who was quite
+calm and very tired, he sobbed out his love and his penitence and his
+stern and frantic resolves for the future, his undying intention to be
+as good a man as she was until Mrs. Twist, who was not very used to
+emotional young men, packed him out of the way to take the news to Mr.
+Twist, who was sitting up waiting for it.
+
+The two women had never told Mr. Twist of Louis's tragedy. He had
+guessed that he had been "on the shikker" that week he stayed away, but
+he took that as the ordinary thing done by ordinary men--he himself was
+past "having a burst," he had no heart for it now; but no young man was
+any the worse for it if it didn't take hold of him. And so, when Louis
+went there with his eyes shining, his hair wild and his hands shaking,
+he brought out a bottle of brandy.
+
+"We must drink the young fellow's health," said Mr. Twist, pouring out a
+microscopic dose for himself and passing the bottle to Louis. "I got
+that bottle a bit ago, as soon as mother told me your missus was like
+that. You never know when a drop of brandy may save life."
+
+Louis refused the drink, but Mr. Twist laughed at him--and Louis could
+not bear to be laughed at. He too poured a microscopic dose, and they
+solemnly toasted the unnamed son. Louis was fidgety, anxious to get
+back.
+
+"Leave them alone--they're better alone for a bit. All sorts of things
+to see to," said the man who had weathered seven birthdays. "Have a pipe
+with me."
+
+They smoked; Mr. Twist talked. Louis answered vaguely, his mind with
+Marcella; he had suddenly determined that he could not keep his son, as
+well as his wife, chained in the Bush with him. Visions of the boy
+growing up--going to school--going to the hospital to do what his father
+had failed to do--floated before him. He was making titanic resolutions
+for the future. His eyes strayed past the brandy bottle. Mr. Twist
+pushed it generously forward.
+
+"Have another dose. You need it, lad," he said. Louis stood up,
+astonishing Mr. Twist. He was trembling violently, his forehead wet and
+shining, his eyes wild.
+
+"Put the damned stuff in the fire!" he cried, and dashed off over the
+paddock as though a pack of devils was after him. It was an epoch; it
+was the first time he had refused a drink.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+
+Marcella lay afloat on a warm, buoyant sea of enchantment, her eyes
+closed; life seemed in suspension; she had never, in her life, known
+pain of any severity until a few hours before; it had appalled,
+astonished her. She felt it unfair that a body which could quiver to the
+swift tingle of frosty mornings on the hills, the buffetings and
+dashings of the North Sea waves, the still glamour of an aurora evening
+on a house-top, and the inarticulate ecstasy of love, should be so
+racked. But as she put out her hand across the bed and felt the faint
+stirrings of the child at her side she forgot those few nightmare hours
+as a saint, bowing his head for his golden crown at the hands of his
+Lord, must forget the flames of the stake, the hot reek from the lion's
+slavering jaws. She looked across to Louis, who was sleeping heavily in
+his hammock; he had found time to tell her that, for the first time, he
+had held temptation literally in his hand and been able to conquer it.
+And she felt that Castle Lashcairn was not big enough to hold all the
+kindliness and happiness that seemed to be focussing upon it from all
+the round horizon. Faith in the logical inevitability of good had
+changed to certainty: it seemed to her, now, that faith was only an old
+coward afraid to face fact. She was looking at the world from her
+mountaintop that night; it seemed to her that it could never be the same
+again for anyone in it, since she herself felt so different, so exalted.
+
+The next two days brought complications. When Louis, coming in at noon,
+all smelling of sunshine and wind and smoke, kneeled beside the bed for
+a moment and, peeping underneath the folded sheet at the pink,
+screwed-up face of his son, happened to touch her breast with his hand,
+she was bathed in a sea of pain. Later in the day Mrs. Twist said he
+would have to go to the township to get a feeding-bottle for the baby;
+he was inclined to dispute the necessity for it, but he set off at once,
+for the child, fed with sugar and water in a spoon, kept up a
+dissatisfied wailing. Marcella forgot to be anxious about him, so
+completely had she sponged fear from her mind. When, at breakfast-time
+next morning, Jerry came in with the bottle, she guessed that Louis was
+washing off the dust of his swift travel before he came to see her. In
+the absorption of feeding the child and talking to Mrs. Twist she almost
+forgot him; it was nightfall next day before she saw him, and then he
+looked haggard and pinched, and she was almost frantic with fear; when
+he was away from her she never thought he was drunk; always she thought
+he had met with an accident. He told her, between sobs and writhings,
+that once again he had failed, but he had been too ashamed to come to
+her until he had slept off some of the traces of his failure. Seeing him
+buying a baby's bottle at the store the men of the township had chaffed
+him into "wetting the baby's head," and he had forgotten his recent
+victory, his adoring love, his fierce resolves, and the little hungry
+thing waiting to be fed. Once again she felt stunned, incredulous;
+later, when she was up again and going about the cottage and Homestead,
+she determinedly forgot. His passionate struggles made it impossible to
+feel resentment against him, however much he made her suffer. Always she
+was sure this particular time was the last time; always she thought
+Louis, like Andrew, had been going along the Damascus road and had seen
+a great light.
+
+And so, for two years, they lived on at Castle Lashcairn; for long days
+sometimes Louis went off to Cook's Wall, and she despaired. Most of the
+time she hoped blindly. Much of the time they were incredibly happy in
+small things. Some slight measure of prosperity came to Loose End. The
+uncle who used to send the gramophone records retired from business and,
+buying himself an annuity, divided his money between his few relatives
+so that he could see what they did with it before he died. Quite a
+respectable flock of sheep came to take the place of those drowned in
+the flood and burnt in the fire; a horse and buggy went to and fro
+between Loose End and the station; Scottie the collie got busy and two
+shepherds came, building another hut at the other side of the run. A
+plague of rabbits showed Mr. Twist the folly of putting off the
+construction of rabbit-proof fencing any longer, now that he could
+afford it, and the gorse was once more left uncleared for months in the
+pressure of new things. Neighbours came, too--the deposit of manganese
+at Cook's Wall was found cropping up on the extreme borders of Gaynor's
+run, and a tiny mining township called Klondyke settled itself round the
+excavations five miles from the Homestead. Marcella made friends with
+everyone, to Louis's amazement. To him friendliness was only possible
+when whisky had taken away his self-consciousness; the parties of
+miscellaneous folks who turned up on Sundays, bringing their own food,
+as is the way in the Bush where the nearest store is often fifty miles
+away, worried him at first. He stammered and was awkward and ungracious
+with them, but Marcella, dimly realizing that it must be bad for him to
+be drawn in so much upon their _egoisme a deux_, tried to make him more
+sociable. When he forgot himself and was effortlessly hospitable, he was
+charming. When he felt shy and frightened, and was fighting one of his
+rhythmical fits of desire, he was difficult and rude.
+
+Aunt Janet wrote every month: her letters varied little; they were
+cynical though kindly; especially was she cynical about Louis, for,
+though Marcella told her nothing about him, she guessed much from the
+girl's description of their life. She was very cynical about Marcella's
+breathless descriptions of her happiness: she was frankly despondent
+about young Andrew, who, as yet, showed no signs of fulfilling her
+gloomy predictions.
+
+Dr. Angus wrote every mail. Though a world apart, he and Marcella seemed
+to get closer together. He was growing younger with age, and she older.
+He told her he had no friend but her letters, and wrote, sometimes
+thirty pages of his small, neat handwriting to her--all about his
+cases, his thoughts, his reading. And every book he bought he passed on
+to her. Louis had had to put up three more shelves for them.
+
+"I've been unduly extravagant, Mrs. Marcella," he wrote once, at the end
+of the second year. "I've left the rheumaticky old woman to a sort of
+patent rubbing oil very much in vogue just now, and I've resigned the
+coming babies to the midwife at Carlossie, and been to Kraill's
+Lendicott Trust lectures at Edinburgh. He seems, in my humble and very
+uninstructed opinion, to have gone very far since 'Questing Cells.' The
+lectures were on sex psychology. He admits that they are coloured by
+what he learnt at Heidelberg last year. But he goes further than Germans
+could possibly go. There's a gentleness, a humanity about him, and a
+spirituality one doesn't expect from the author of 'Questing Cells' or
+from those Lendicott lectures a few years ago. The thing that struck me
+about him is that he's so consummately wise--wise enough, Mrs. Marcella,
+to grasp at the significance of an amoeba as well as that of the Lord of
+Hosts! I'm a small man--a little G.P. in an obscure Highland village in
+rather shabby tweed knickerbockers and Inverness cape (yes, the same
+ones--still no new clothes! What would be the use in wasting money on
+adorning an old ruffian like me?) But I went up to him, sort of shaking
+at the knees, after the second lecture, and discussed a point with him.
+The point was not what I was wanting to know about. I was wanting, very
+much, to have a 'bit crack' with him, as they call it here. Lassie, he
+asked me to lunch with him the next day, and he talked to me as if I was
+his long-lost brother. In fact, he seems to think that everybody is! He
+came off the rostrum completely. Even when he's lecturing he seems to be
+talking to you personally, with an engaging sort of friendliness. He
+puts me a good bit in mind of Professor Craigie when I was a lad. I felt
+as if I was a baby in arms beside him, but he seemed as pleased to see
+me as I was to see him. No, he hasn't got a long white beard, and he
+doesn't look a bit like Ruskin or Tennyson or Dickens. Do you remember
+when you said you thought he had bushy eyebrows and a white beard, years
+ago? He's not above forty-five, I should say; but I'm no judge of age
+after folks are forty, I'm so afraid of putting my foot in it. He's much
+bigger than me (I'm talking about appearance now). He gives one the
+impression of quick blue eyes. I can't remember any more about him; I
+remember every word he said, but not how he looked when he said it. And
+now I suppose you want to know all he said; you have an Examining
+Board's thirst for information, Mrs. Marcella! But I'm sending you the
+printed lectures and some news. He told me he's going to Harvard this
+year. In fact, he's there now; and after that he's on his way to
+Australia. I gather that you're a wandering Jew's journey from Sydney,
+but wouldn't it be worth your while to take that man of yours and go to
+hear him? It isn't often one gets a chance of seeing in the flesh
+someone who has got into your imagination as Kraill got into yours and
+mine. I'd walk all the way from Carlossie to Edinburgh to hear him
+again. It makes me sad, sometimes, to think how little chance we
+doctors in practice, with all our responsibilities and opportunities,
+have of getting this heaping up of wisdom that comes to men like Kraill.
+Measles and rheumatics, confinements and bronchitis take up all our
+time, and when we get a man like poor Andrew your father, something out
+of the ordinary, appealing to us for healing, we give him digitalis or
+Epsom-salts for the elixir of life. We do our best, but it's bad--very
+bad. When I talked to Kraill that day I kept thinking of your father. I
+kept thinking he'd have been alive to-day if he could have caught on to
+Kraill's philosophy. I feel small, Marcella. I honestly hadn't the
+brains, the knowledge, to do anything for your father. I talked to
+Kraill about it. He said something very kind and very queer about the
+socialization of knowledge. I didn't quite catch on to it at the time,
+but thinking it out afterwards it seemed to me that he meant knowledge
+was not to be a Holy of Holies sort of thing, a jealous mystery, an
+aristocratic thing, any more; but be spread broadcast, so that everyone
+could have wisdom and healing and clear thinking. And after all, isn't
+healing, more than anything else, merely clear thinking? I hate the
+waste of people, you know. I hate that people should rot and die. I feel
+personally affronted when I think about your father, and some days--I
+strongly suspect it's when my liver's out of order--I worry about your
+young son. But by the time he's grown up maybe Kraill's socialization of
+knowledge will have begun."
+
+Marcella was having an argument with Mrs. Beeton that day when Jerry
+brought the letter in. Mrs. Beeton seemed to think it was necessary to
+have an oven, a pastry board, a roller and various ingredients before
+one could attempt jam tarts. Marcella felt that a mixture of flour,
+fruit salt, and water baked in the clay oven heaped over with blazing
+wood ought to beat Mrs. Beeton at her own game. She and young Andrew,
+both covered in flour because he loved to smack his hands in it and
+watch it rise round them in curly white clouds were watching beside the
+fire for the sticks to burn down. When she read the doctor's letter she
+sat down immediately to write to him. She knew so well that sense of
+inadequacy that trying to help Louis always gave her, and she wanted to
+cure him of it. The jam tarts got burned; she forgot about them. It was
+only when she remembered that the letter could not go to the post for
+three days that she decided to write it again at greater leisure.
+
+The two years had aged Marcella; the doctor's letters were manna in the
+desert to her spirit, his books the only paths out of the hard, tough
+life of everyday. Sometimes she felt tempted to take the cheap thrills
+of purely physical existence with Louis as she realized more and more
+that, though his schooled and trained brain was a better machine than
+hers, his soul was a weak plant requiring constant cossetting and
+feeding while his body was the unreasoning, struggling home of
+appetites. She had the torturing hopefulness that comes from alternating
+failure and success in a dear project; she was getting just a little
+cynical about him; her clear brain saw that she was his mother, his
+nurse and, perhaps, his mistress. He loved her. She knew that quite
+well. But he loved her as so many Christians love Christ--"because He
+died for us." His love was unadulterated selfishness even though it was
+the terribly pathetic selfishness of a weak thing seeking prop and
+salvation. She faced quite starkly the fact that her love was a love of
+giving always, receiving never; also she faced the fact that she must
+kill every weakness in herself, for, by letting him see her hardness,
+she gave him something to imitate. Hunger of soul, the black depression
+that comes to a Kelt like a breath from the grave, weariness of body
+must all be borne gallantly lest he be "raked up." Once or twice, when
+Louis had slipped and failed and was fighting himself back again, she
+felt that she was getting bankrupt. One could never treat Louis by rule
+of thumb. He might get drunk if she inadvertently spoke coolly to him.
+Then he would get drunk out of pique. He might get drunk if she had been
+especially loving. _Then_ it would be because he was happy and wanted to
+celebrate; if she were ill he would get drunk to drown his anxiety: if
+she got better, he would drink to show his relief; if she died, he would
+drown his grief. Sometimes she felt that it was quite impossible to
+safeguard him: she literally had not the knowledge. Such knowledge was
+locked away in a few wise brains like Kraill's--and meanwhile people
+were rotting. Once she wrote a long letter to Carnegie asking him to
+stop giving money for libraries and spend some on helping to cure
+neurotics. But she destroyed the letter, and went on hoping. Sometimes
+she felt that her body would either get out of hand as Louis's did, or
+else crack under the strain put upon it by her temperament, Louis and
+her work. Sometimes she thought her capacity for happiness would atrophy
+and drop off if she so defiantly kept it pushed into a dark corner of
+her being every time it protested to her that it was being starved.
+Sometimes she hoped that the time would come quickly when she would have
+killed desire for everything as Aunt Janet had done, and would be going
+about the world a thing stuffed with cotton-wool, armoured in
+cotton-wool. And all the time she was fighting the insidious temptation
+to kill the unconscious aristocracy of her that had, after the first few
+weeks in Sydney, set a barrier between her and Louis--a barrier of which
+he was never once conscious. Other people, on a lower range of life,
+seemed quite happy with a few thunder flashes of passion in a grey sky.
+Louis did. Except when the end of the month brought pay day, and set him
+itching to be off to the township, he seemed happy. At these times she
+deliberately made love to him to hold him from the whisky, loathing the
+deliberateness and expediency of a thing which, it seemed to her, ought
+to be a spontaneous swelling of a wave until it burst overwhelmingly.
+She did not realize until long afterwards what good discipline this was,
+as her brain and spirit refused to follow her body along a meaner path.
+Louis never guessed how she thought out calmly whether to be hurt or not
+by him, and decided that it was better to be a wounded thing hiding her
+wounds under a coat of mail, rather than a dead thing in
+mummy-wrappings, in cotton-wool.
+
+But the doctor's letter generated hope. She respected the doctor's
+opinion. For him to be enthusiastic about anyone was very wonderful;
+there was something wistful and very beautiful in this deferring of an
+old man to one much younger, something very touching in his frank pride
+in the big man's friendliness. Always Kraill had been a hero to her,
+since the days when his cynical early book of lectures had come like
+revelation to her, even though she had had to take the help of a
+dictionary on every line. That evening Louis went off to the township
+after three days' restless nerviness on his part, and three nights'
+valiant love-making on hers. Taking young Andrew she went down by the
+lake and leaving him to splash joyously in the ripples at the edge, she
+read the last lectures.
+
+She read for an hour, gorging the book as a child gobbling sweets before
+his nurse's return. She was devouring understanding--it seemed to her
+that the lectures were being written expressly for her. It seemed, with
+one half of Kraill's wisdom she could save Louis. The child got hungry
+and she fetched milk and biscuit for him. His crawler was soaked by the
+water in which he lived half his life. She changed it in a dream and
+took him back to the lake again, where the shadows were getting long and
+cool. It was possible to think with detachment there, in the serenity of
+the evening.
+
+She saw, as she usually saw things, very clear and stark, that all
+through she had been wrong about Louis. Once only she had come within
+touching distance of the right, when on the _Oriana_ she had told him
+that his only hope was to throw up the sponge, as people
+say--acknowledge himself beat to the earth as Saul of Tarsus had done on
+the Damascus Road. Andrew Lashcairn had done it that night with the
+little pale cousin; he had made himself "at one with God": fighting and
+struggling had ceased; his life, a battle-ground of warring forces, had
+become, in a mighty flash of understanding, the chamber of a peace
+treaty, and God--a big man--God outside himself--had taken hold of him
+and kept him. To Louis that could never happen; he was too unloving, too
+self-centred, too unimaginative ever to see lights from heaven. Indeed,
+she thought hopefully, Louis might, in the end, go further than Andrew.
+He might stand up in the strength of a man without the propping of a God
+at all.
+
+"I've weakened him. All along I've weakened him. I've fussed over him
+like a hen after her duckling when it takes to the water. I wouldn't let
+him swim for fear he'd get drowned. And so--he just flops about and
+looks disgusting. I've made him run away from temptation. That was
+because I couldn't keep on being disappointed in him. Because I couldn't
+face the disgust of him coming home dirty and smelly and saying filthy
+things to me--and sleeping close to him. Andrew," she called to the
+baby, who looked at her solemnly and went on playing with the little
+pebbles at his feet. "Listen, darling, what mother's telling you. 'He
+that fights and runs away lives to fight another day.' I made him run
+away from whisky, and all the time it's throwing down challenges to him,
+putting out its tongue at him, pulling rude faces at him. I've been
+protecting myself from the things drunkards' wives have to put up
+with--Oh, but I was trying to protect him, too!"
+
+The last words were wrung from her in self-defence.
+
+"What I ought to have done was to take the whisky, make him look at it
+all round and tell it, with his own conviction and not mine, to go to
+hell. I ought never, never to have protected him, and made him a
+hothouse plant."
+
+As she said it she knew, incontrovertibly, that she could never do
+anything but protect people. It was the way she was made. And she became
+very frightened that, some day, she might make Andrew a hothouse plant,
+too.
+
+She looked at the thin, grey-backed book again and more light came to
+her. She flung herself on the ground, her face on the soft grass. The
+baby, looking at her wonderingly, crawled towards her, and snuggled up
+to her, his wet little hands on her neck.
+
+"Oh make me weak!" she cried as though praying to the earth and the air
+and the water to batter her. "Make me weak--smash me and tear me up, so
+I'll have to be taken care of. Then I'll let him be strong instead of
+me! Oh but it's cruel! Why should one person be weak to make another
+strong? Why can't we march on in armour, shoulder to shoulder?"
+
+And then came the thought that, perhaps, had not her father and Louis
+been the men they were she would never have learnt to wear her armour.
+The wisdom of nature that made the protective coverings of birds and
+beasts had given her her armour--made her grow her armour out of her
+surroundings. This thought made her gasp. She sat still a very long time
+letting it sink in.
+
+"I wonder," she said slowly, looking out over the lake, a pool of fire
+in the setting sun, "if that's why Jesus died. He didn't want to, I
+think. He loved the quiet things of the world, little children and
+talking to friends, and doing things with his hands. I wonder if he had
+to die, when his teaching was finished, so that those others he loved
+might not get to depend on him too much? We're so fond of getting
+propped. I don't think people ought to have a Good Shepherd. Unless they
+only want to be silly sheep all their lives. And here I've been Good
+Shepherding Louis all this time till now he can't get along without my
+crook round his arm."
+
+It was many years since she had consciously prayed, but now she thought
+of her father's prayers, and whispered:
+
+"God--You know all about this muddle of mine. You gave Louis to me so
+that, in the end, he might be a path for You to walk along. I've tried
+to be a path for You towards him, but I thought I'd better help You
+along. I couldn't keep quiet. Oh how silly of me! God, I see now that
+I've been all wrong. I've been keeping him out of the world when I
+ought, all the time, to have been making him brave enough to face the
+evil in the world. Please God, let me be quiet now--and not keep
+tripping You up with my own ideas, my own strength when You walk along
+my life."
+
+Her quick imagination, the imagination of a savage or a child, saw
+pictures where other people would have seen ethical ideas. She went on,
+softly:
+
+"Walk over me with burning Feet. Oh don't worry, please, about how much
+it hurts, so long as You get to him in the end. Because I love him--and
+because he is the one You gave to me--the man I needed."
+
+She stood up slowly, and felt that, at last, she had given in. The poor
+baby lay blissfullly asleep beside her on the ground. She took him in
+her arms and carried him home Then she sat down with pen and ink and
+wrote a letter. She was not sure when it would be posted, but she
+decided to get it written, at any rate. She felt fey--she felt that she
+was being led, now that she had asked to be kept quiet at last.
+
+She wrote:
+
+"'CASTLE LASHCAIRN'
+(It isn't really a castle. It's a hut).
+
+"DEAR PROFESSOR KRAILL,
+
+"Ever since I was fifteen you have been the very heart of my imagination.
+I used to read your lectures to my father, and because I've never been
+to school I had to get a dictionary to two words on every line. You
+enlightened me, and depressed me, and shocked me and annoyed me all at
+once in those days. But in your last Edinburgh lecture it seems to me
+that the spirit of God has come upon you to lead captivity captive. (I
+think that is such a beautiful sentence I can't help putting it in a
+letter to you, because I would like to write to you in beautiful words.)
+I would like to quote some more of the Bible to you, but you can read it
+for yourself. The fifth chapter of the second book of Kings--the story
+of Naaman the leper. I am the servant maid in that story, and I've just
+discovered that I've been trying to cure my lord's illness with lumps of
+cotton-wool. There is someone at home in Scotland who sends me all your
+lectures, and when I read the last ones I felt that you were the prophet
+in Samaria. I hear that you are lecturing in Sydney soon. I would come
+to hear you, but I can't leave my little kingdom here. And I don't think
+they'd approve of my small son at a University lecture. He is only two,
+and very busy always. I feel that, if I could talk to you, I should see
+a great light; you seem such a very shining person to me. And I'm a
+duffer. A well-meaning duffer with a task before her that needs brains.
+You talk of the socialization of knowledge--will you begin the
+socialization on my behalf? I wonder if you would like to see what life
+in the Bush is like, you who are a student of life? Then you could show
+me where Jordan is nowadays.
+
+"This is very sincere, this request. I shall not be offended if you
+think it isn't, but I shall feel that there is no more light in the sky.
+I'd got resigned to failure when I read your lectures, and they wakened
+me to hope again, because they showed me that I've done every possible
+thing wrong. If you do come, please write a very long time in advance
+because we are thirty miles from the station and only go in for letters
+occasionally. If you can't come, I'll go on worrying with the lectures
+until I understand without you.
+
+"Yours sincerely,
+MARCELLA LASHCAIRN FARNE."
+
+She fastened the letter up in between two books. It was three months
+before she read in a week-old Sydney "Sunday Times" that Professor
+Kraill, the eminent biologist, "whose fame in his newer field of
+research had preceded him to the Antipodes," was to lecture at Sydney
+University during the next three months. Marcella did not open the
+letter; she posted it to Sydney University and left the issue in the
+hands of the forces that had made her write it.
+
+Professor Kraill got it when he was being bored to death in Sydney and
+he rather discredited the sincerity of it for he was being wearied to
+death by lion-hunters. Eminene men from the Old Country either get feted
+or cut in the Colonies. He was feted because he happened to arrive at a
+time when "culture" was fashionable, and Shakespeare Societies, Ibsen
+Evenings, History Saturday Afternoons and Science Sundays were the rage.
+Foreign legations and Government officials gave him dinners as deadly as
+any in England. He saw that he was to appear in character at these
+dinners. He was expected to wear a phylactery on his forehead inscribed
+"I AM A BIOLOGIST." He was expected to talk biology to the government
+ladies, who hoped he would say things that were "rather daring" but
+quotable. In fact, they hoped that he himself would be "rather
+daring"--but quotable! They talked about Shackleton's expedition, which
+was the affair of the moment, and thought that they were being
+flatteringly and intelligently biological when they asked him how seals
+lived under ice. There was a dance on the flagship which, thanks to the
+snotties, was quite alive. Then came a month's interim in the lectures
+when more festivities were threatened. Professor Kraill read Marcella's
+letter and thought she was probably a rather emotional, rather intense
+and rather original lion-hunter. But she had the redeeming feature of
+living in the Bush, thirty miles from anywhere. Conceivably, thirty
+miles from anywhere, there would be no festivities. He tossed up between
+the City and the Bush, and the Bush won. Giving out that he felt very
+unwell after the round of gaieties, he basely deserted, got into the
+most uncomfortable train in the world and, two days later, threw himself
+on the hospitality of the landlord of the bosker hotel at Cook's Wall,
+entirely omitting to let Marcella know that he was coming.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+
+At Klondyke and Loose End they were great on celebrations. So very
+little except work happened that birthdays wedding-days, and
+anniversaries of all sorts wore greeted hilariously, and the various
+members of the community took it in turn to hold them at their various
+homesteads. A birthday happened to Mrs. Twist--her fortieth. She and
+Mr. Twist were the oldest inhabitants of the district and the birthday
+was a great occasion. Invitations were passed round from hand to mouth;
+about twenty grownups and twice as many children turned up one Saturday
+afternoon just before tea at the Homestead, which, decorated in branches
+of wattle and boughs of eucalyptus, looked very festive. The gathering
+had something of the nature of a surprise party in that most of the
+guests brought something to eat or drink. But most of them, in delicate
+compliment to the changed fortunes of Loose End, brought not necessities
+but luxuries. Jerry's gramophone was still hoarsely valiant; three
+Italians from Klondyke, manganese miners, brought mandolines; Jerry had
+recently acquired a mouth-organ with bells.
+
+Marcella was always rather depressed about celebrations. Always Louis
+said, easily, that he would be safe; always he joined forces with the
+hard-bitten, hard-toiling miners who each brought his bottle of whisky
+and drank it without ill-effect. She could do nothing to help him: he
+resented her anxiety more and more as time went on.
+
+The Homestead had grown. At the south side a big storeroom had been
+built: at one end of it flour-bags were stocked, both empty and full, to
+serve as seats for the dancers when they were exhausted. The guests sat
+long over tea, yarning, chaffing, gossiping and talking business; as it
+grew dusk the men sat on the verandah, smoking reflectively, talking
+little. In the living room the women all chattered at once. Louis had
+been working during the day on the gorse clearing again; until it was
+all burnt off it was a constant menace, for wind-blown seeds and
+underground leaders seemed to spring up spitefully in the midst of
+growing lucerne and wheat. Marcella's beloved garden had had a struggle
+against it: so had Mrs. Twist's patch of vegetables, so they were all
+making a gigantic effort to uproot the whole thing and get rid of it.
+Across the clearing the fire crackled and blazed and died down to a
+ruddy glow; in the storeroom Jerry's gramophone led off with "Oh Dry
+those Tears," and the youngsters started to dance. A new record was put
+on, because "Oh Dry those Tears" was not conducive; the sound of
+rhythmically beating feet drew the others towards the ballroom, and
+Marcella was left on the verandah listening to the barking of some
+half-dozen dogs, brought by the guests and tied up behind the Homestead.
+She knew that the massed force of cups and tumblers was not quite
+sufficient and decided to wash them before they would be needed for
+relays of coffee.
+
+She was feeling very wretched; it was the end of the month; in two days
+Louis, already nervy and restless, would get the month's money, either
+by persuasion or force, and either vanish for a week or, coming home
+every night from Klondyke, reduce her to a state of inarticulate
+wretchedness. She was on the point of losing hope entirely. Sometimes it
+seemed to her that he drank deliberately now that the first flush of
+gratitude and love for her, the first zest of having a son, had worn
+off. He lied until she was sickened of the sound of his stammering
+voice--for never once did he lie without stammering. If he had not
+struggled and been so pitiful she would have given up, then, and been
+content to take three weeks' strained peace to one of blank horror. But
+his despair when he came out of his hell goaded her to keep on hoping.
+
+She was washing the cups out on the verandah. Those of enamelled tin
+Andrew was trusted to carry indoors as she wiped them. She heard a horse
+coming along in the distance and guessed that it was a delayed reveller
+from Klondyke as she saw a tall man whom she did not recognize make for
+the storm centre of things in the ballroom. Clouds of dust and flour
+were eddying out of the door in a stream of light from the kerosene
+lamp. He dismounted and stood in the haze for a moment. Then he looked
+round in bewilderment and caught sight of her. The gramophone was
+playing "Rock of Ages."
+
+"Can you tell me what _is_ going on in there? Is it St. Vitus' Dance?"
+
+Marcella looked at him and gave a little shout of laughter.
+
+"No, it's Mrs. Twist's birthday. Didn't you know?"
+
+"How could I? Never heard of her. I'm looking for Mrs. Farne. They lent
+me this animal at Klondyke. It seems days ago. They said she knew the
+way blindfold. They didn't think to tell me she didn't know it unless
+she was blindfold."
+
+Marcella laughed again, and knew who he was.
+
+"If it hadn't been for those fires I should never have got here. But,
+perhaps you can tell me where Mrs. Farne lives? They all seemed to know
+her at Klondyke."
+
+Marcella pointed towards the glowing gorse.
+
+"That's where I live. I'm Marcella Farne," she said. "But why didn't you
+say you were coming? Mr. Twist would have fetched you in his buggy. He
+loves meeting people at Cook's Wall because he tries to convince them
+that it's a real road he's driving them along. And it isn't, you know."
+
+He sat down on the edge of the verandah, looking distastefully at the
+mare, who shook her head impatiently. Marcella gave her water and let
+her wander, when she had taken off her saddle and bridle.
+
+"Suppose you hadn't been able to ride. I didn't think Professors had
+time for that sort of thing."
+
+"Neither did I till a few hours ago," he said, with a short laugh,
+taking out a cigarette-case and offering it to her. She sat down rather
+trustfully on a verandah rail Louis had carpentered. Andrew stared at
+them both and made off silently towards the noise. "But how did you know
+who I was?"
+
+"I only know one other man in the world, you see, and he's an old doctor
+in Scotland."
+
+He was watching her as she spoke.
+
+"I see," he said. "And you think you know me?"
+
+"Yes. I know you like I know St. Paul and Siegfried and Parsifal--people
+living in my mind all the time. I've talked to you for hours, you
+know--hours and hours--"
+
+"It was very good of you to ask me to come. But--embarrassing, you know!
+I simply had to come, out of curiosity. To find someone reading one's
+lectures right in the heart of the Bush!--"
+
+"I thought you would come," she said, staring at him gravely, "when Dr.
+Angus told me what you said about the socialization of knowledge. But I
+can hardly believe it's you, even now. Yet somehow you look as if you
+could think those last lectures of yours. Before I read those you seemed
+tremendously clever and--and rousing. To speak biologically--"
+
+"Oh, please!" he said, smiling. "They've been doing that in Sydney--out
+of encyclopedias--!"
+
+"I was going to say that your thoughts always fertilize my brain. But
+you must be hungry, so I'll not tell you what I want to about the
+lectures yet."
+
+She slipped off the verandah rail and went indoors, leaving the
+Professor rather amazed. He was not quite sure whether to think she was
+a serious and dull young person, absolutely sincere and very much a
+hero-worshipper, or one of the lionizing type he had met in the city. He
+was deciding that she was too young for the latter role when she called
+him inside the candle-lit room.
+
+"I hope you drink tea. We drink quarts of it here."
+
+He nodded reassuringly.
+
+"There's some beer, too, but the shepherds and old Mike from Klondyke
+will have to drink that. It was put into a kerosene tin that hadn't been
+boiled and it smells terrible. But they won't notice."
+
+"They'll probably be dead," he remarked.
+
+"Mike drinks methylated spirit and the shepherds have a bottle of
+squareface each on Sunday afternoons when Betty and Andrew and I look
+after the sheep. Nothing hurts us. We're hard people out here."
+
+"What made you write to me like that?" he asked, still puzzled. "I still
+have no idea--"
+
+"I wanted to see you, for one thing. But that's only a small thing. I
+can't tell you now. I'm the cook to-day, you see, and they'll be wanting
+their supper in a little while. I must go and find somewhere for you to
+sleep, too. How long can you stay?"
+
+"I'm not sure," he said guardedly. "I don't want to embarrass you,
+however much you embarrass me."
+
+"I'd like you to stay for months," she said simply. "I--we're very
+lonely."
+
+The gramophone groaning out the "Merry Widow" waltz seemed to contradict
+her words, with its accompaniment of tramping feet, laughter and talk.
+"This only happens on birthdays and things. Even then, it's lonely."
+
+"I don't believe you're any more lonely than I," he said.
+
+"I can understand that. I've felt it in your lectures. You're so much
+wiser than most people."
+
+"What rubbish!" he said with a laugh, wondering again if she were
+sincere. "Much less, very much less wise than most people."
+
+"If you tell me that I'll be wishing you'd not come. I'm counting
+everything on your being wiser than other people--and shining--like your
+lectures. But Louis once said that people usually _think_ much better
+than they can do--"
+
+"That was very penetrating of Louis," he said. Then--"I hope I don't
+disappoint you. I do--most people. Women especially--"
+
+"Do you? Why?" she said with her puzzled frown.
+
+"I suppose it's because I'm what you called, in your letter, a student
+of life. I like to understand things--and people. Particularly do I like
+to understand women. But one finds it impossible to take them seriously,
+as a rule."
+
+"I don't know many women--" she began.
+
+"And how many men did you say? Two?" he said, smiling. She shook her
+head.
+
+"I'm afraid I take everyone rather seriously."
+
+"It's a mistake," he said. "I used to. But they disappoint one. When I
+stopped taking people, women especially, seriously, and made love to
+them, I found them quite adorable--"
+
+"It seems silly."
+
+"It's quite a delightful pastime."
+
+They had gone out on the verandah again now, and she looked across at
+the lake that glimmered red in the fire-glow.
+
+"You didn't seem to think women a pastime in those lectures of yours
+three years ago. You said then that they were man's heel of Achilles.
+You seemed rather in a panic about them--"
+
+He nodded his head and, meeting her intent eyes, decided that she had to
+be taken seriously. He was just going to speak when she went on:
+
+"But you've got past that now--the panic stage, the pastime stage, the
+cynical stage--"
+
+"I suppose you're thinking of those last Edinburgh lectures? They're
+the furthest I have got yet. I believe they are a very clever piece of
+work, a sort of high-water mark. But there are so many pulls to jerk us
+back from the high-water mark, don't you think? And as Louis--wasn't
+it?--said, we most of us think better than we do--"
+
+They had reached the haze of the ballroom by this time. People sitting
+on the flour-bags sent up white auras which mingled with the dust and
+the smoke of strong pipes to make an effective screen. Kraill looked
+astonished. Marcella smiled.
+
+"They say Englishmen take their pleasures sadly," he whispered
+confidentially. "I don't think they could say the same for Colonials."
+
+"They work so hard, and they like to let off steam sometimes," she said.
+"By the way, I must simply say you are a friend from England. If I say
+you are someone very wise they'll either be rude to you or frightened of
+you. And all the girls will want to dance with you if I say you're from
+London. They're mad on dancing, and they'll take it for granted that you
+are. They'll expect you to teach them all the new things."
+
+He looked startled as he watched the swaying crowd. It certainly looked
+dangerous, if it was not difficult. The gramophone was playing the
+"March of the Gladiators"; the mandolines were tinkling anything and the
+mouth-organ had given it up entirely, merely punctuating the first beat
+of every bar with a thin concussion of the bell. Betty had sprinkled the
+floor with a slippery preparation she got from the store, called
+"ice-powder."
+
+"Be careful when you cross the floor. It's worse than ice, to make it
+easy for those who can't dance. You just cling to someone and slip if
+you don't know any steps. Some of them say their slip is a waltz: others
+call it a gavotte, and some say it's the tango. Old Mike's very definite
+that it's a jig. The great thing is to make the slip coincide with a
+groan from the gramophone. Just watch a minute, and you'll see that
+there is quite a lot of method in it."
+
+She looked round for Louis, who was in a corner with some of the miners.
+By his flushed face, his high voice and hysterical laugh she guessed
+that she must try to keep him from seeing Kraill that night. She never
+could be quite sure what he would do or say.
+
+Mrs. Twist was pathetically honoured that the "gentleman from England"
+should have chosen her birthday for his visit, and Marcella left him
+with her.
+
+"It's a pity to be Martha to-night, Professor Kraill," she said in a low
+voice. "I want to be Mary--"
+
+She was gone before he could answer.
+
+The noise had made Andrew cross and tired, and she put him to bed in the
+hammock under the gum trees, and hitched up her own hammock in the
+bedroom next to Louis's. She knew that he would be drunk to-night;
+experience had given her a plan of action. She had to pretend to go to
+bed with him and stay with him until he was asleep. Then she crept out
+into the open air beside the boy.
+
+She tried to transform the storeroom into the semblance of a bedroom,
+but it did not occur to her to apologize for discrepancies; she would
+not have done so had the king come to visit her: indeed, she considered
+that he had, for Kraill had always taken his place in her imagination,
+as she had told him, with heroes of romance.
+
+When she got back to the Homestead everyone was ready for supper. They
+had to get away early, for most of them had to walk the five miles to
+Klondyke. The Professor seemed to be at home with the miners. His air of
+intense interest that had so won Dr. Angus' heart had immediately
+flattered and enslaved them all. Before they said good night he had
+committed himself to visiting them all. Marcella won a good deal of
+reflected glory by possessing him as friend.
+
+"Are you tired of us?" she asked him after a while.
+
+"I am very glad I won that toss!" he said.
+
+"Which?"
+
+"I tossed up whether to stay in Sydney or come here"--he stopped sharp,
+for it seemed to him that she looked hurt. He decided that, with
+Marcella, it would be better to be honest than pleasant.
+
+"As a matter of fact, your letter completely puzzled me. I'm a modest
+sort of person, you know. To be asked to help anyone seemed such a
+wonderful thing to me that I scarcely believed it. If a man had written
+the letter I should have believed it more. But as I told you, I can't
+take women seriously--"
+
+"Before you've finished with me you will," she said, and laughed.
+
+She was just going to suggest to him that he was tired and should go to
+bed: she was so anxious to get him out of the way before Louis came out
+of his corner that she could scarcely talk coherently. But just at that
+moment Louis came up to her. He took no notice of Kraill or Mrs. Twist,
+who was quite used to him by this time. At the back of Louis's mind was
+the obsession that in two days he would draw his pay; half of him was a
+blazing hunger for whisky after three weeks' abstinence and hard work
+and peace; the other half of him was fighting the desire desperately; he
+wanted to win over one of these warring halves to the other; the fact
+that he had been drinking all the evening had weakened the finer half;
+his brain worked quickly. If he could find some grievance against
+Marcella he would be able to excuse himself to himself for getting
+drunk, for taking the money that he knew she needed. He wanted
+peace--unity within. So he raved at her because the tag had come off his
+shoelace, and it was her wifely duty to see that a new lace had been put
+into the shoe that morning. From that he went on to the usual gibberish
+of French, the usual accusation against men in the neighbourhood, the
+usual _melange_ of Chinese tortures and gruesome operations. From
+Kraill's horrified face Marcella saw that he understood more than she
+did. She had never been sufficiently morbid to ask anyone to translate
+his words for her, even after more than three years of them.
+
+She wondered weakly what would happen. Judging Kraill by her father and
+Dr. Angus she knew that his ordinary code of convention could not let
+him disregard Louis as the others did, as being merely a rather weak,
+silly young man, who "went on the shikker" every month and made many
+varieties of a fool of himself. Everyone gave him the mixture of
+disgusted toleration and amusement given to a spoilt child who kicks his
+nurse in the park, and pounds his toys to pieces. Marcella never talked
+about him to anyone; she cut off ungraciously the attempts at
+sympathetic pumping made by the women at Klondyke. They concluded that
+she did not feel anything since she never cried out. But, looking at
+Kraill's face for one fleeting instant Marcella knew that he understood
+how sore and shamed she was.
+
+"He's very ill, really," she said in a low voice. "But no one believes
+it. They think he's just wicked. I'll tell you all about it to-morrow. I
+expect you know without my telling you. But I didn't want you to see him
+like this. I've fixed up a bed for you at home. Will you let Jerry show
+you the way?"
+
+He decided instantly that she knew her own business better than he did,
+and that his desire, both natural and conventional, not to leave a woman
+to see a drunken man to bed, was not going to help her.
+
+"Shut your door up tight, please," she said. "He may not go to sleep for
+a long time."
+
+He nodded, looked at her to show her that he had begun to take her
+seriously, and turned away with Jerry, rather astonished to find himself
+dismissed so coolly from the scene. She turned to Louis, forgetting
+Kraill. Jerry, who adored Marcella, became very voluble on the subject
+of Louis; Kraill listened mechanically to all he was saying as they
+crossed the paddock.
+
+It was one of Louis's bad nights; he had been drinking both whisky and
+squareface. A letter from his mother, saying how she was longing to see
+her grandson, had roused him to great deeds. His fall after such
+resolutions was always the more bitter; always it needed more than usual
+justification; always Marcella was the scapegoat. She had forgotten
+Kraill in the intensity of her misery until, worn out by his ravings,
+Louis fell asleep. She knew, then, that he was safe for the rest of the
+night and she crept out silently into the cool cleanness of the garden,
+closing the door softly. Only his loud, stertorous breathing came to her
+with mutterings and groans. The moon had risen and little mist-wreaths
+walked in and out among the wonga-vines on the fence: Marcella's golden
+flowers with which she had planted the clearing all round the
+house--nasturtiums, sunflowers, marigolds and eczcoltzias--shone silvery
+and ethereal. The smoke from the dying fires rose in thin white needles,
+plumed at the top: out in the Bush a dingo barked shrilly and some small
+beast yelped in pain. Andrew stirred and she tucked the clothes round
+him, kissing his brown, round arm and fingers, wishing he were awake so
+that he could be crushed in her arms and let her bury her aching head on
+his wriggling little body for an instant--he was never still for longer.
+
+She sat down on the edge of the verandah, her arm round the post; her
+eyes were aching; she felt too tired and helpless to go on living and
+yet the relief of having got Louis to sleep was really very great. She
+was trying to decide to write to Dr. Angus, asking him to give her some
+sort of sleeping draught she could give Louis when he had one of his bad
+times; she had forgotten that, in a week's time, all the money would be
+spent again and they would be happy for another period: but to-night's
+misery, more and more each time, was beginning to shut out pictures of a
+peaceful to-morrow, a vindication of faith.
+
+A faint sound behind her made her start in horror, afraid lest he had
+wakened. But it was Kraill who was standing quite still looking down at
+her.
+
+"Does this sort of thing happen very often?" he said with an air of
+intimate interest that reassured her.
+
+"I'd forgotten about you," she said jerkily. "I'm so sorry--if I'd known
+you were coming I'd have arranged for you to stay at the Homestead
+to-night."
+
+"But does it?"
+
+"He can't help it."
+
+"It can't go on, you know," said Kraill, lighting a cigarette and
+throwing it down impatiently.
+
+"I know. That's why I wrote you that letter. He is so unhappy."
+
+Kraill made an impatient gesture. Marcella stood up slowly.
+
+"Are you tired? You must be," she said.
+
+"No. I want to see this thing settled," he said. She felt very hopeful
+to hear him speak so determinedly.
+
+"It's queer that you think as I do about that, Professor Kraill," she
+said with a faint smile. "People say other's troubles are not their
+business. But I think that's a most wicked heresy. I always interfere if
+I see people miserable. I can't bear to be blank and uninterested."
+
+"Neither can I. I often get disliked for it, however," he said with a
+quick, impatient sigh. "And they don't often accept one's interference."
+
+
+"I shall," she said gently. "I shall do whatever you tell me if it will
+make Louis well. I think that is really all I care about in the world.
+Sometimes, even, I think I care more about Louis than Andrew. I've a
+feeling that he's much more a little boy than Andrew is. You know, all
+my life, since I saw my father very unhappy and ill, I've wanted to save
+people--in great droves! And now I'm beginning to think I can't save one
+man."
+
+"And you think I can?"
+
+"I'm quite sure of it. People are not wise like you are just for fun.
+But will you come along the clearing with me a little way? I'm afraid
+our voices will waken Louis, and then he won't get any sleep. That is,
+if you're really not tired."
+
+They went through the moon-silvered grass down to the lake. She sat
+under the big eucalyptus which clapped its leathery hands softly.
+
+"I was sitting here when I read your lectures--the last ones--and
+decided to write to you. It is like--like Mount Sinai to me now. Will
+you talk to me out of the thunders, Professor Kraill?"
+
+He looked at her for a moment, recalling the rather heart-breaking
+calmness and common-sense with which she had soothed Louis a while ago;
+he remembered her cool, patient logic in the midst of the drunken man's
+ravings--and he decided in a flash of insight that this rather
+rhetorical way of talking to him was very real to her. She saw him with
+the dream-endowed eyes of the Kelt and, embarrassing though it might be
+to him, and unreal though it made him feel, he had to accept the fact
+that, for her, he was clothed in a sort of shine. He saw, too, that she
+could not do without some sort of shine in her life.
+
+"Tell me all about it," he said. "You don't mind talking to a stranger
+about these things?"
+
+"You have never been a stranger to me, Professor Kraill. And I don't
+believe there is such a thing as a stranger, really. I like to think of
+the way the knights always went about ready to interfere with a good
+stout sword when they saw anyone in trouble."
+
+And so she talked to him, and as she talked his quick mind gained an
+impression of her going about sordid ways and small woman tasks in
+knightly armour. After awhile he said something unexpected. It made her
+impatient for it showed that he was thinking of her. She was thinking
+only of Louis.
+
+"You know, you make the years slip away," he said. "I have dreamed that
+women might go shoulder to shoulder with men, standing up straight and
+strong."
+
+"Yes, I know," she said softly. "I think many a time I've very
+deliberately stood up straight when I wanted to lie down and cry my eyes
+out, just because I got the idea of a woman knight from those lectures
+of yours. And your talk about the softness of women rather goaded me. I
+_wouldn't_ be soft."
+
+"Soft! You're not soft," he interrupted.
+
+"But think how expensive it is!" she said with a voice that shook a
+little. "It took a lifetime of discipline and two weak men to make me
+hard. I know now, very well, that Louis has been softened, weakened by
+me. To save him I think I must crumple up."
+
+She caught her breath sharply.
+
+"And I don't see how I can," she added.
+
+"One might pretend," he said slowly, looking reflectively at her face.
+
+"I couldn't. I can't pretend anything. That's the worst of me. And it
+seems so wrong to me that, to make one human being strong, another must
+be weak. And it seems to me that the weak thing kills the strong in the
+end. Like ivy, you know, choking out the life of an oak."
+
+"I don't think he is likely to kill you."
+
+"I very much wish he would, except that I dare not leave him. I have
+weighed it all up very carefully, and I feel it would be better to die
+than live this way. Sometimes I feel I shall get unclean--right inside.
+I can't explain it. There are things in Louis I can't bear--little
+meannesses, and selfishnesses. He locks things up--even here, where no
+one ever comes. That's a horrible spirit of selfishness, isn't it?"
+
+She told him calmly, uncomplainingly, impersonally as one talks to a
+doctor, of his locking up his cigarettes, his tobacco, his writing
+paper; of how he carried the only pencil about in his pocket and hid
+away the papers from his mother, the books from Dr. Angus until he had
+read them. One day last week they had been short of milk, and Marcella
+had been anxious about the boy's food. The breakfast was on the table;
+she had to run to her bedroom for a bib for Andrew. When she got back
+Louis had already poured all the milk into his tea, saying that he had
+done it by accident. Another time she had thrown away the boy's tablet
+of soap by accident, and could not find it anywhere. Louis had his own
+tablet, locked away; there was no other nearer than Klondyke except the
+home-made stuff composed of mutton fat and lye, very cruel to tender
+skin. And he had made a scene when she asked him for his soap for Andrew
+and, when she, too, made a scene threw it away into the scrub where she
+could not find it. Little things--little straws that showed the way of
+the hurricane.
+
+"You see," she said calmly. "It wouldn't do for me to die, and leave
+Andrew to that sort of love, would it? I knew a little boy once who had
+to look after his father," and she told him of Jimmy Peters on the ship.
+"I think if it came to dying, the only thing would be to take Andrew
+along too."
+
+"Don't you think you're being rather conceited?" he said suddenly. "Has
+it occurred to you that you're taking too much on yourself? You admit
+that you're keeping your husband a parasite. Are you going to do the
+same to your child? Are you the ultimate kindliness of the world? You
+tell me of your own stern childhood. Has it hurt you? You must be
+logical, you know!" he added, smiling at her.
+
+"I think I want Andrew to be happy rather than heroic. Heroism is such a
+cold fierce thing. I'm only just realizing what a coward I've been, and
+how utterly unheroic my hope in Louis has been. But it's so natural,
+isn't it? I didn't dare face the rest of life without the belief that
+some day we should be happy. Every time he gets drunk I've told myself,
+very decidedly, that this was the last time. And I know I've been lying
+to myself because I daren't face the truth."
+
+Kraill smoked thoughtfully for a few minutes.
+
+"I suppose it never occurred to you that, without the drink to consider,
+you would not be happy with him?" he said at last.
+
+"Oh yes. We are quite happy in between," she said with a sigh.
+
+"On the edge of things? Always with reservations?" he said quickly.
+
+"Only on the edge of things," she said slowly. "How well you know!"
+
+"I know all about it. I have never been past the edge of things myself.
+But always I think I shall be some day. I suppose I am quite twice your
+age, and still I am romantic, still I think there's a miracle waiting
+for me round the corner of life."
+
+"I used to think that until just a little while ago. I used to think
+there would be a day when I should shine. Now I daren't think of it
+because I know I never shall. After all, stars and suns and things must
+be lonely, don't you think?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+The moon sank, the dawn wind ruffled the grass and whispered in the tops
+of the rustling trees, making soft, eerie sounds.
+
+She stood up suddenly. Unconsciously she held out her hand to help him
+up. Then she laughed bitterly, and twisted her hands in each other
+behind her.
+
+"I'm sorry. I forgot you didn't need helping up," she said. He looked at
+her curiously.
+
+"This is an appalling way to treat a guest," she said as they walked
+slowly towards home. "To sit out with him in the middle of the night and
+keep him awake. You make me selfish. I've never talked about Louis to
+anyone before. You make me dependent, Professor Kraill."
+
+"And that, you say, is what you need."
+
+Louis was calling out thickly, wildly, as they came within distance. She
+started and began to hurry. "I wouldn't go in there!" said Kraill
+sharply.
+
+"It doesn't worry me now. If I don't go in, he's too frightened to
+sleep, and then he'll wake Andrew. And if he doesn't sleep he's very ill
+next day. Sleep gets rid of the effects of whisky, you know. Oh just
+listen to him! Why can't I do something? You will help me--you must!"
+she cried, clutching at his hands for a minute. To his intense distress
+he saw her eyes full of tears, and saw her cover them with her hands as
+she ran into Louis's room. He stood on the verandah watching her shut
+the door. Through the trellis window came sounds of a soft voice and a
+wild one mingling.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+
+Louis, when he had got over his amazement at hearing that Kraill was his
+guest, tried frantically to pull himself together. He was indignant with
+Marcella for asking Kraill to stay in a hut, but he realized that it was
+only another evidence of what he called the "Lashcairn conceit" and
+that, if Marcella had thought it desirable to ask the Governor-General
+to tea, she would have done so unhesitatingly. When he met Kraill he was
+very nervous and shaky, unable to think coherently because of the fight
+that was going on within him. When she came back from her work at the
+Homestead, where the relics of the party had to be cleared away, the two
+men had vanished. They walked round the rabbit-proof fences and came
+back in time to welcome a "surprise party" from Klondyke drawn by the
+magnetism of the "gentleman from England" who had won them the night
+before. Marcella thought several times of Dr. Angus and wished that he
+could have been there to see Kraill "getting off the rostrum" as he had
+done in Edinburgh. But she got no chance to talk to him all that day;
+there was too much miscellaneous chatter.
+
+"He's great, isn't he?" said Louis at bedtime. Marcella was startled.
+She had never heard him praise anyone but a few doctors at the hospital
+before.
+
+"I wish I could be like that--not frightened of people," he said. "I've
+worn my nerves to shreds, now. You don't understand nerves. You don't
+possess any."
+
+He turned over in his hammock ready to go to sleep. She came across to
+him and bent over him.
+
+"Louis, what's going to happen to-morrow?" she asked presently.
+
+"Gorse-grubbing. We've to get it all cleared now without delay."
+
+"You know what I mean, dear. Can't you--won't you try not to go to
+Klondyke at all? Louis, it would be so splendid if we could save all the
+money for a few months and go home to England so that your mother can
+see Andrew. Wouldn't it?"
+
+He sighed.
+
+"Shall I ask Mr. Twist to keep the money, and not give us any for six
+months? That would be a good plan. We are always so happy except on pay
+days, and you are so wretched after you've been to Klondyke."
+
+He agreed absolutely, with such alacrity that she was a little doubtful
+of him. Next morning when she went over to the Homestead at eight
+o'clock she learned that he had come to Mr. Twist with a tale about
+wanting the money for a visit to the store, and had gone off at six
+o'clock. It was three days before he came back, dirty and haggard and
+despairing almost to the verge of suicide.
+
+During those three days Marcella deliberately left her work; she went to
+the Homestead in the mornings, and fired some gorse in the afternoons;
+dense clouds of smoke rose into the windless air. For the rest she made
+Kraill talk, listening to him with an air of sitting at his feet. She
+felt more despairing than ever. Kraill seemed to share her pity for
+Louis and she, feeling in a way that Jove had spoken from the thunders
+and the earth had not trembled, was dulled and dead. She knew that he
+would go back to Sydney soon; she wondered how she would bear her aching
+loneliness, her bankruptcy of spirit when he was gone.
+
+The night Louis came back was even more dreadful than ever. His talk
+with Kraill had made him bitterly jealous. It hurt him like a wound to
+see an Englishman there, and an Englishman who could come and go about
+the world as he liked, unchained. Like Kraill he had tossed up for his
+chance that morning he went to Klondyke--whether to finish the whole
+miserable business in the lake and leave Marcella and the boy to go
+their way to England in peace, or whether to get drunk as usual. And
+tails had won. Cussedly he paid the cost.
+
+And that night, sore and aching at heart, longing beneath the whisky
+madness to sob out all his penitence and misery into her ear, with her
+hair over his face, her arms around him, he raved at her all the foul
+things he could think, in sheer self-excuse. She had been to bed for
+hours. It was about two o'clock when he came home and, afraid that he
+should waken Kraill, she led him away from the house until he was
+quietened by her sudden turning on him and shaking him until he could
+not find his breath for awhile. That always sobered him; her kisses and
+caresses and forgiveness soothed him to sleep afterwards.
+
+The next morning Kraill said that he must go to Sydney. He bade her
+good-bye and went without a word of kindliness, of hope. Louis took him
+to Cook's Wall. When he came back he said nothing in answer to all
+Marcella's enquiries about what they had said on the long drive. Louis
+went back to the gorse-grubbing and worked feverishly for almost a
+month, as he always did after being drunk. And it seemed as though
+Kraill had never been except that in all the little things that used to
+be a joy she now could find no joy at all. The shine had gone from her
+golden flowers, the softness from the wind rustling in the scrub, which
+now was an irritating crepitus; there was no music in Andrew's laugh, no
+ecstasy in the words he was learning every day, words that, at first,
+she had written proudly on a sheet of paper to send to his grandmother.
+The gentleness seemed to have gone even from Mrs. Twist's kindly face,
+and the negative peace of three moneyless weeks to come brought no
+healing. She felt that she would welcome strife.
+
+One day she found it impossible to work; she felt fey, restless. She
+wrote a letter to Dr. Angus but tore it up, dissatisfied. Taking down
+the little grey book of the Edinburgh lectures, which she had not had
+the heart to touch, she read the last one again. Into it she read
+Kraill's voice, pictured his gesture, saw how his quick eyes would look
+friendly, interested, arresting as he talked. On the last page was a
+paragraph that someone had marked in pencil. In the margin was "J.R.K."
+written faintly. She read the paragraph hungrily. Evidently he had meant
+it as a message for her.
+
+_"One of the greatest of human triumphs is to read the need in
+another's eyes and be able to fulfil it. The difficulty lies in
+comprehending the need. Most of us have rich storehouses, but to the
+man who needs of us a crutch we give dancing shoes: to him who needs a
+spur we offer wrappings of cotton-wool. ... We ask tolerance and sympathy
+for our failings, patience for our inadequacies ... we give and get only
+disappointment.... Partly this is because our needs are the things we
+hide most jealously from each other, partly because we only see needs
+subjectively ... this is the explanation of most of the sex muddles that
+tangle life."_
+
+As she read Kraill's message she thought again of her prayer for
+weakness down by the lake. As she stood there, with all the lights of
+her life burning dim, all the virtue gone out of her, it was forced upon
+her that her prayer was being answered. She was getting weak! Never
+before had she felt despairing about Louis; never before had she felt so
+dull, so unable to help him, so unable to care that he should be helped.
+
+As this thought came and held her, making her feel that something
+stronger than herself had taken possession of her and was merely using
+her as it would, she felt quietened. She had prayed for the blazing Feet
+of God to walk along her life to Louis. Perhaps this dulness, this
+weariness was their first pressure.
+
+She turned to go out of the room and saw Kraill standing in the
+sunlight. He looked tired.
+
+"You've come back, then?" she said, and laughed suddenly at the futility
+of her words. "It's a very long way for you to come."
+
+"I went away for a whole month to think about it," he said in a low
+voice. "And all I can think is that I must take you away. You'll have to
+leave him."
+
+She shook her head hopelessly.
+
+"I've thought that too, very often, when I felt I couldn't bear it. But
+always I _have_ borne it. And he would die without me."
+
+"The best thing is for him to die," he cried harshly. "In a decent
+community he would be put in a lethal chamber. But I'm not thinking of
+him. I'm thinking of you. And I'm thinking of myself."
+
+He threw his hat on the ground, and turned away from her.
+
+"You've got into my imagination," he began almost indignantly.
+
+"You've been in mine years and years," she said.
+
+He came back then, and she was frightened of him.
+
+"Let's get out of this," he said impatiently. "I can't talk to you here
+in his house. Let us get off into the Bush somewhere. Where's the boy?"
+
+"He's playing with Betty."
+
+"You'd better fetch him along," he said unevenly.
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"Louis would be worried if he came in and found me out at tea-time," she
+said. "It made him very unhappy to see you, you know. He can't bear to
+think that you are free while he is a slave."
+
+She walked before him to look at the distant smoke of the fires. The
+clearing was almost finished.
+
+"Damn Louis!" he cried. "He is a slave because he lets himself be! And
+you're a slave because he's one. I shall not let you stay here, chained.
+Armour suits you better."
+
+"Whatever do you mean?" she gasped.
+
+He strode along without her, knowing that she would follow; it was so
+good to follow instead of leading always.
+
+"You know quite well what I mean," he said at last when they were out of
+sight of the house and only faint pungency of burning wood reached them,
+with the crackle of wind in the scrub. "I've made a woman like you, in
+my dreams. I never thought to see her in the flesh--yet--. One who could
+march along by me shining--not wanting to be carried over rough
+places--getting in a man's way, stooping his back--"
+
+She tried to speak, but his eyes silenced her. She stared at him,
+fascinated.
+
+"Oh I'm so sick of pretty, pathetic, seductive little women. Always I
+have to make love to them. It's the only meeting-ground between a man
+and most women. You--I couldn't make love to you! You're not seductive,
+in the least. You're hard and quick and taut. There's a courage about
+you--"
+
+"Please, Professor Kraill," she began, but he silenced her by an
+impatient gesture.
+
+"Listen to me, Marcella. You listened to me before, like a little meek
+girl on a school-bench. I'm sick, sick, sick of women! Soft corners and
+seduction!--Narcotics--when what a man needs is a tonic. Miserable,
+soft, uncourageous things. I want the courage of you."
+
+"Can't you see that you're all wrong about me?" she said at last. "I'm
+not hard, really--only a bit crusted, I think. See what I've done to
+Louis!"
+
+"Louis!" he cried contemptuously. "You're not going to be wasted on that
+half thing any longer. I'm not saying it isn't fine to save a man's
+life. It is. It's very fine and splendid. But you've to be honest with
+yourself, Marcella, and think if it's worth while. He's not worth it. If
+you save him from drinking there's very little to him, you know."
+
+"Don't tell me that, because what you say I believe," she cried in a
+stricken voice. "It's all my life you're turning to ashes."
+
+"I shall give you beauty for ashes, Marcella. You and I together, we can
+go marching on in seven-league boots! There's a kingliness about you.
+Listen to the things I say to you unconsciously! I can't say the pretty,
+graceful, soft things we say to women! There's a kingliness,
+Marcella--not only about you, but about me too. We're not the common
+ruck. You're not happy, are you?"
+
+"Sometimes," she said softly.
+
+"No, you're not--not honourably! Kings can't be happy with commoners!
+They don't speak the same language. If you're happy it's because you let
+yourself consciously come down. And--wallow. As I have--"
+
+Her face flamed to think how he had seen through her. He saw it, and
+cried triumphantly:
+
+"I knew it! In the higher parts of you you're always adventuring, always
+lonely, always hungry. As I am. You never find a harbour, a friend, a
+feast. Do you? No, I don't need you to tell me. I know all about it. I
+have known it for more years than you have lived yet."
+
+"But really, I am happy sometimes," she protested. He caught her hands
+and held them so that she had to look at him.
+
+"With Louis? Is your brain happy with Louis? Do you ever come within
+touching distance of each other? Is your spirit happy with Louis? Isn't
+it always hungry, holding out begging hands? Are your brain and your
+spirit not always calling you back and scorning you when you let your
+body wallow--slacken and take cheap thrills?"
+
+"Oh, it's wicked that you should know these things about me," she cried.
+
+"No. It isn't wicked at all. I know the same about myself. I've taken
+cheap things. Biology got me on the wrong tack at first; with a
+biological mind I saw everything _via_ the body. Biology's a dragon one
+has to slay; that's why, in my work, I've taken to psychology instead.
+Love-making! I told you, right at the first, I always made love to
+women--. I always have done it, and always should have gone on doing it
+if I had never met you."
+
+"But why--if you despise it?"
+
+"I wasn't doing it as an end. It was a means. All the adorable,
+tender prettiness of love-making leads to physical love inevitably,
+and I always thought and hoped and believed that after it I'd arrive
+at some Ultima Thule of understanding, of comradeship, of equality.
+Never! Ugh, they were soft! Soft flesh, soft spirit, tricky brain!
+Sometimes I have a nightmare of trying to get to heaven up mountains of
+woman-flesh--soft, scented stuff, sucking one in like quicksands. You're
+the only woman I've ever thought much about and not made love to! To you
+I couldn't make love--"
+
+"Whatever is this, then?" she asked faintly.
+
+"This is one king coming to another, asking his alliance, his
+comradeship! You there, with that man--that jelly thing! You sicken,
+nauseate me. It's like seeing a queen go on the streets! Marcella, you
+can't do these things, you know. You're letting down your spiritual
+caste. You and I--we've been along lower paths. There wasn't really any
+disgust in it then, because we were adventuring, finding each other. But
+if we go on the lower paths now we're doing a thing that's damnable. All
+my life I've waited for the wonder that should come round the corner. So
+have you. And here it is, for both of us--"
+
+"How many love affairs did you tell me you had had?" she broke in, in a
+queerly casual voice.
+
+"You're not going to be conventionally horrified, are you?"
+
+"No. But I think you're muddled. I think this is satiety, you know."
+
+"It's you who are muddled, Marcella. This is satisfaction, not satiety.
+I know I've got all I need in you. Body, mind and spirit. Most of all,
+spirit--and courage."
+
+She dropped on to the crackling ground. He looked down at her.
+
+"I don't believe you know anything at all about control, Professor
+Kraill," she said very quietly, so quietly that he dropped down beside
+her to listen as she kept her face averted. "Do you remember, once, you
+said 'Women have no inhibitions'?"
+
+"I was young. And even now, it's true--" he cried.
+
+"I'm a woman. But I've never deliberately wallowed--as you seem to have
+done. Once or twice, perhaps--I was sort of weak, or perhaps hopeful. I
+thought it might be very beautiful--"
+
+"You were seeking, as I was," he said, suddenly gentle.
+
+"And--it meant softness, being bowled over, loss of control and finally
+cynicism," she said.
+
+"No, no. Not finally cynicism, Marcella. Cynicism half-way along, if you
+like. But finally--anchoring."
+
+She looked at him, very slowly, all over: her hands were quite still on
+her blue print frock that smelt of fire: many and many a night and day
+of hard schooling and cold patience had gone to make them lie there so
+untremulous now. She reflected on that for a moment; she reflected that,
+in years to come, by enduring hardness, people would be able to school
+their hearts from beating the swift blood to a whirlpool, their lips
+from hungering for a kiss. She thought next of Aunt Janet, desiccated,
+uncaring, and knew that Aunt Janet's way of life was wrong because it
+shirked rather than faced things. Her long gaze had reached his
+beautiful eyes and stayed there; she seemed to see down into a thousand
+years, a thousand lives. She knew quite well that here was the place of
+dreams come true; here was the deliverer with whom she had thought to
+ride to battle, and he too had dreamed. He saw her armour. He did not
+see the chinks in it. And he never should. And--he had said women had no
+inhibitions!
+
+"It's hard," she said, her eyes still resting on his, "to keep your
+thoughts brave as well as your actions, isn't it?"
+
+"What do you mean, Marcella?"
+
+She was sitting motionless and white; he thought he had never seen a
+live thing so still, so impassive. As she watched his lips, and heard
+his voice speak her name, blazing floods of weakness were pouring over
+her.
+
+"There are things one mustn't do," she said slowly. "But they would be
+most beautiful to think about, right deep down and quiet inside--like
+Mary had to hide and ponder in her heart the things the angel told her.
+One mustn't. I mustn't even think about you--that way--"
+
+"What? What do you mean?"
+
+"Thoughts drag people down, down, don't they? Except for a minute or
+two I've thought clean and selfless about Louis. Always about you I've
+thought very shiningly. If I let go a minute the shine of you will be
+out of my eyes. Do you see? Then I'll be like--like any of the other
+women! All soft corners and seduction. Just while you've been talking to
+me I've understood that I _want_ to be like that; that's why I've been
+so dead this last month since you went away. It seems a pity, doesn't
+it?"
+
+He found that it was his turn to sit speechless, watching her.
+
+"There, now I've told you," she said, and lifted her hands and let them
+drop again hopelessly. "And now I'm going back to Louis. You want my
+courage.... Oh God, you've got it!"
+
+He still stared at her. Quick, understanding as he was, he had not quite
+understood yet. He only saw that she was still whiter, that the still
+hands were clenched.
+
+"If we get any closer you'll see the chinks in my armour. I suppose I'll
+see little dark patches in your shine.... If you didn't think so well of
+me, I suppose I should just let Louis drop out--if I didn't think so
+well of you I'd give you the kisses and narcotics and seduction you're
+tired of."
+
+"Marcella, I don't care--if I thought--" he began, almost savagely.
+
+"Oh, thoughts, thoughts! They're cruel! Here we both are, thinking so
+much better than we can do. No--no! We _can_ do it! Only--we can't do it
+happily. Some day, I think, shining thinking and shining doing will be
+hand in hand--"
+
+She stood up slowly then, and turned away. He saw her going right out of
+his life. And it seemed to him just as it had seemed to her, that all he
+had ever done or had done to him had led up to that moment.
+
+"Marcella," he cried, and seized her hands again. "I can't let you go.
+Whatever you have, whatever you are, I want you."
+
+"I!" she cried. "I! Always I! What do you and I and any of us matter,
+really? What does it matter if we do get smashed up like this if only we
+manage to keep our thoughts of each other clean and free from slinking
+things--fears, and greeds?"
+
+"I can't _help_ thinking about you!" he cried.
+
+"I know. I can't, either. That's why we've to be so careful _what_ we
+think. And it's going to be a hard, austere sort of thing for us both.
+Once I saw you a beautiful thing with swift wings all torn off in a
+sticky mess. Now I see you very shining--"
+
+She looked at him with blinded eyes.
+
+"Always I'm going to make myself see you like that now. Never, never
+will I let a greedy or unclean thought of mine dull you.
+And--please--you'll try to--to--do the same for me, won't you?"
+
+He could not speak yet. He realized how terribly right she was.
+
+"It's harder for us both, that you've been here and this has happened,"
+she said. "Harder! But better! Neither of us, for each other's sake, can
+have any more cheap thrills, slothful moments, thoughts without courage.
+Oh good-bye."
+
+She turned towards him and saw that he was lying on the grass. His
+shoulders were shaking. She knew that he was crying. That seemed
+terrible to her. She had to run, then, very quickly away from him or she
+would have stayed--and been soft. As she ran she, too, was crying.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+
+Louis was on the verandah as she came round the fence. She saw his eyes
+blazing madly, his face distorted, his hands clenched. He came to meet
+her, raging.
+
+"Where've you been?" he choked out.
+
+She waved her hand over towards where Kraill was. She could not speak.
+
+"Whose is this hat? It's that damned professor's!"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Where is he? Why are you crying? He's come here after you!" he raved.
+
+"He's gone," she said faintly. "Gone--for always. Except
+in my thoughts--inhibited thoughts--thoughts washed and
+boiled--thoughts--Oh--sterilized."
+
+"What in hell are you talking about?" he cried, taking her by the
+shoulders and shaking her fiercely. "Why are you crying, I say?"
+
+"Because he's gone," she said, and cried all the more.
+
+"My God! The impudence of it--telling me," he shouted, and seemed to be
+strangling with rage.
+
+"The--the--honesty of it, Louis. Oh and--the--the awfulness of it! I'm
+crying because I can't bear it!"
+
+"You--you--" he gasped, and paused for a word.
+
+"Louis," she said, raising wet, miserable eyes to his. "I've sent him
+away, but I daren't, daren't trust myself not to run after him. Oh and
+it would so spoil things for him and all of us if I did! Listen, Louis,
+can't you grab me and not let me go after him? I can't hold myself back,
+and I _did_ promise him I wouldn't let my thoughts get greedy! He said I
+was in armour--Louis, my dear, I've tried to help you so often when you
+were being torn in two. Can't you--my dear--it's your turn now."
+
+"You damned adulterer!" he gasped, finding the word at last.
+
+She sobbed, and in her sobs he saw fear, guilt. He flung her to the
+ground, repeating the word.
+
+"Oh you silly, silly fool," she cried. "He's better than that--if I'm
+not."
+
+"Then what in hell are you crying about?"
+
+"Because I'm not--not a damned adulterer!" the words were torn from her.
+"But I can't clean my thoughts of wanting to be. My dear--after so
+long--I've helped you and been patient. Can't you do something--now, to
+make me able to bear it?"
+
+"Now _you_ know what it is to--" he began with an ugly laugh. Then rage
+seized him. "I'll break his damned neck," he cried.
+
+"That's no use! What will that do to me? You can't kill the love that's
+tearing me up, by smashing his body to bits! You see, Louis, I've got
+him, for ever and ever. The shining, knightly side of me has. But it's
+the greedy side of me--the side that makes you grab out for
+whisky--that's sticking teeth into me now. And you know how it hurts."
+
+"God! I'll break his damned neck," he cried again, and raged off into
+the Bush.
+
+She crept into the house. A wild thought came to her that, if there were
+any killing it would be Kraill who would do it. And he and she would run
+away for awhile, right into the Bush, before people came to hang them.
+She stopped breathing at the gloriousness, the primitive
+full-bloodedness of it, and then writhed in horror at the greed of such
+thoughts, and prayed passionately that a sentry might be put at the door
+of her mind.
+
+And she knew, very well, that presently Louis would be back--that he
+would say once again all the foul things he had said before, now with
+some glimmering of truth in them: that he would get money from somewhere
+and be drunk to-night, for now, at least, he had excuse. Then he would
+grin foolishly, and cry weakly, and rage and be futilely violent, and
+she would have to take this quivering thing that housed her armoured
+soul and make it do his service; she would have to undress him and wash
+him so that Andrew, trotting in in the morning, should not see his
+father in bed dirty; she would have to kiss away his ravings, soothe his
+fears. Presently she shook her head many times. She knew that she could
+never do that any more.
+
+An hour, two hours passed. She sat quite still. Then a shadow crossed
+the window and steps came on to the verandah. She did not move. Louis
+stood by the door. Kraill was beside him. Louis looked quite sane, and
+very unusually young and boyish. There was a queerly different look
+about him. She stared at him for a moment; almost it seemed as though
+she could see a shine about him for an instant. Then she looked at
+Kraill, and he at her. She did not move, but her soul was on its knees
+worshipping his beautiful, still eyes that were tragic no longer, but
+very wise and sad. He read all that she did not say.
+
+Louis coughed.
+
+"Marcella--I'm sorry, old girl. Kraill has talked to me about it. He's
+been--or rather--we've been bucking each other up."
+
+He coughed awkwardly.
+
+"Bucking each other up--no end, old lady," he added, and ran his hand
+through his hair, making it wild, and rough.
+
+She smiled faintly with her lips. For another moment she could not
+snatch her eyes away from Kraill's.
+
+Then she said faintly:
+
+"It's all very well, Louis. You're always being sorry! Aren't you?"
+
+"This is the last time, Marcella, that there'll be any need to be very
+sorry," he said solemnly. "I was going to clear out for good, but Kraill
+made me come back."
+
+"That's all very well, too. Professor Kraill is going away. He doesn't
+have to put up with you. He doesn't have to sleep with you. You will be
+drunk to-night, and every night when there's any money. And next day
+you'll be whining about it. I've lost hope now. I'm tired, tired of
+to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow."
+
+Kraill's eyes were on her. The echo of a cock that crowed outside a door
+in Jerusalem nineteen hundred years ago came to her and her eyes filled
+with tears.
+
+"Oh I'm so sorry! You asked me for my courage," she said to Kraill.
+
+"There's no need for it now--on Louis's account, Marcella. You believe
+what I say to you, don't you?"
+
+He smiled at her; he looked very friendly, very kindly.
+
+"You know I believe you!" she cried.
+
+"Then I tell you that Louis is quite better now. He is going to take
+care of you and Andrew. I can't prove it to you, yet. But you will see
+it as time goes on."
+
+"I don't want him any more," she cried, "I want you--Oh no--no--!"
+
+His eyes held hers again, tragic and terrible. Then again he smiled,
+and she felt that she had failed him.
+
+"No, of course not, Marcella," he said gently. "These slinking greeds
+of ours--"
+
+He turned to Louis.
+
+"We'd better be getting along to the station, don't you think?" He stood
+looking at Marcella, who seemed stunned.
+
+"Don't you think you could make us some tea before we go?" he said
+casually. She stared at him dully.
+
+"Tea?" she said dazedly, and began to laugh shrilly. "Tea? Oh, men are
+funny! You're both so funny! _'The greatest of human triumphs is to read
+the need in another's eyes and be able to fulfil it.'_ Tea! Oh Louis,
+isn't it funny--making tea--now."
+
+She laughed and laughed, and then Kraill and Louis began to dance about
+before her eyes most erratically, until a black curtain all shot with
+fires came down and hid them, and waves of cold, green water went over
+her. She felt someone lift her out of the water and then she went to
+sleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+
+In the months that followed Marcella often tried to find out what had
+caused the Miracle--for Miracle it seemed to her. The desire for whisky
+that had obsessed him for ten years seemed to have died: he frankly
+admitted that it gave him no trouble now at all. When she seemed
+inclined to praise him for his bravery he laughed at her; there was no
+bravery in doing a thing that was perfectly easy and natural to him. He
+looked different: he was just as different as Saul of Tarsus after he
+saw the blinding light on the Damascus road. His nerves never cracked
+now; the little meannesses of which both she and the boy had been
+victims had disappeared; he gave her a kind of wistful, protecting love
+that proved to her, more even than his frequent safe visits to the
+township, that something radical had happened that day in the
+Bush--something so radical that, if it were taken from him, he would not
+be there at all. She felt that he was safe now; she felt that the boy
+was safe; she felt that in everyone on earth who was sick and sad and
+unhappy was the capacity for safety. But she did not know how they might
+come by it.
+
+But she knew, incontrovertibly, that she could never love Louis again
+with any degree of happiness or self-satisfaction. That much Kraill had
+shown her. She and Louis had no part in each other's spiritual nights
+and days; the typhoon of physical passion that had swept her up for a
+few minutes she saw now as a very cheap substitute for the apotheosis
+Kraill had indicated. It was Louis's weakness that had been their
+strongest bond in the past: now that that was gone there was little left
+in him for her. But peace after pain was very beautiful.
+
+It was not until after six months of sanity that he told her all about
+the miracle. One evening, after the child had gone to bed, they were
+sitting on the verandah. Louis had been talking of going home to start
+afresh in England.
+
+"The voyage would do you good, Marcella. My diagnostic eye has been on
+you lately," he said as he lighted a cigarette and passed it to her.
+"You're looking fagged, and it's unnatural to see you looking fagged.
+You're getting thin. I don't want to see you suddenly evaporate, old
+girl."
+
+She shook her head and stared unseeingly over the soft green of
+springing life that, before they came, had been devastating gorse.
+
+"Yes, clearly a trip to England is indicated," he said. "You're alone
+too much. Marcella, I believe you're thinking every minute about
+Kraill."
+
+"I--can't help it," she said in a low voice. "They're--good thoughts,
+now."
+
+He looked at her, and something about the droop of her shoulders
+contracted his throat, made a pain at his heart.
+
+"It's hard--" he began.
+
+"It's a hunger, Louis. You understand it, don't you? But I can't buy it
+in a bottle!"
+
+"Marcella!" he cried passionately. "I'll--I'll come into your thoughts
+in time. Lord knows I'm trying hard enough."
+
+"Oh my dear, don't I know?" she said gently. "And has it occurred to you
+what a mercy it is for me that you're like this now? If I had to hide
+everything up, like I used to, I couldn't bear it--never seeing him
+again--if you didn't help me to."
+
+"It's queer," he said slowly. "Most people--husband and wife--would not
+be able to talk about this sort of thing to each other. They'd hide and
+lie to each other."
+
+"We've both been weak--and we've both been helped. And these demands we
+make of each other teach us so much. If Kraill had not demanded courage
+of me I'd--he'd have had me. It's no use lying about it, is it? Why
+should you be so frank about your whisky, and give yourself away to me
+every time about it, and I hide up my weakness from you?"
+
+"You're--weirdly honest, old girl," he said with a short laugh.
+
+"Yes. Even now, if I had not promised him courage of thinking, I
+suppose--he'd have me--but I had to live up to what he saw in me."
+
+"And that, of course, is what saved me," he said quietly.
+
+"I've often wondered," she said. "Are you going to tell me now?"
+
+There was a long silence. He smoked two cigarettes as his mind went back
+to that hot, strange day.
+
+"I went out," he began at last, "to kill him. I'd always been a coward
+before. But then I didn't know what fear was. In a crisis like
+that--Marcella, listen to me getting back the psychology I learnt at the
+hospital!--the ruling emotion comes on top. And my ruling emotion, I
+think, is selfishness. Brutally frank, old lady! Learnt that from you.
+But do you remember that soap, when young Andrew got his face skinned
+because I wouldn't let him have mine? And--heaps of times--about grub,
+and things. Oh yes," he went on, as she looked startled, "I've quite
+realized how selfish I always was to you. Well, don't you see how it
+worked? I thought Kraill had got you. You were my property. I just
+couldn't bear that. The only thing seemed to be to kill him."
+
+"I didn't think you loved me," she murmured.
+
+"I don't believe I did--till Kraill gave me a few tips! You see, I went
+roaring off to him, and he was standing by a tree looking stunned. I was
+flaring, frantic. I called him a damned adulterer. He laughed at me, and
+said just what you said, 'If I'm not better than that, she is!' Then he
+told me that I'd deliberately thrown you away. Mad as I was with him, I
+saw that he was quite right."
+
+He paused, and puffed at his cigarette.
+
+"Lord, it was a set-out, Marcella! He said quite calmly, that he was
+going to take you. Then it was I saw what life without you would be. He
+gave me a thumb-nail sketch of myself--and of you and him. You both
+seemed rather fine. I seemed a stinking, grovelling, strawy sort of
+thing. To my amazement it seemed right that he should have you. Lord, it
+scorched! I stopped thinking about killing him, and wanted to kill
+myself."
+
+She put out her hand to him silently and he took it in his.
+
+"Then, quite unexpectedly, he asked me if I was happy. Happy! In that
+strife! I found myself telling him--and I'd just called him a damned
+adulterer, mind!--all about it, the awful fighting, the awful losing,
+and the hunger. And I knew he would understand all of it. He said he'd
+had just such hungers, and had got through with them. He said the
+getting through came to different people in different ways. He said
+something I want to have framed up in the sky for miserable neurotics to
+read, Marcella. He said, 'With you, Louis, it's got to be drastic. It's
+got to be an earthquake. There's more than the drink in you that's got
+to be rooted out. All the foundations of you, all the structure of you,
+have to crumble, to fall together in a heap. Your spiritual centre of
+gravity has got to shift. Do you see?' I didn't see. But that's the very
+most important thing, Marcella--about the centre of gravity."
+
+She nodded. She thought she understood.
+
+"Then he gave me another, gentler picture of myself--a fight here, a
+failure there, a hunger somewhere else, and Lord knows how many old
+shreds of cynicism and belief, of selfishness and ambition and
+wantonness and pride, and just a little bit of love and desire for
+beauty. I told him that madness of mine, about the Mater's letters that
+I told you to take to King George. He was interested in that--said it
+was symbolical of my love for the Mater. I think I told him every bally
+thing in my life. And I never lied once to him. He was quiet a bit, and
+then he said I'd to be shaken up, smashed and crumbled, so that these
+old things would all go from me, and new things come in by the crevices
+and let the axis of me get changed. That seemed reasonable. What was so
+queer was how he treated me like a kid. Rather an intelligent kid, you
+know. He said: 'Did you, at school, Louis, have the lamp and orange and
+hatpin trick to explain night and day to you?' I said yes, and it all
+came back to me, being a kid in school and under orders, you know. And
+he said: 'Suppose your master had jabbed the hatpin just anywhere,
+nowhere near the centre--how the orange would have wobbled, wouldn't
+it?' I said it would, and he went on to say the hatpin wasn't jabbed
+through my centre, and that's why _I_ wobbled so much. That was very
+reasonable, too--but I told him I didn't see how the hatpin was going to
+be pulled out. Yet all the time I listened to him, sort of fascinated by
+a charm he has--seems a ridiculous thing to say about a man, doesn't
+it?"
+
+"No--not a bit," she said faintly.
+
+"He seemed to care a lot about me. No one but you ever had. And then he
+asked me if I realized what a thin time you had of it. 'Does it ever
+occur to you, Louis, that your wife has had a superhuman job? And she's
+only a girl after all. You know what women are,' he said. They pretend
+to us that they're so very strong and independent. Like a child trying
+to lift a great weight, and saying: 'No, no--you shan't help. I can do
+it,' and in the same minute dropping it on his toes with a smash and
+coming to be comforted! Marcella's like that. She's brave. But she's got
+to the cracking stage now. She's got to be taken care of. I didn't
+believe it. It seemed incongruous."
+
+"After what I'd just told you?"
+
+"Yes. I've always, even as a kid, been such a liar that when anyone was
+brutally honest I thought they were posing. Kraill said, 'You'll never
+be fit to take care of her. You're just a parasite. She's coming away
+with me now.' That squared with what I'd thought of your brutal honesty.
+I thought it was a blind, and that you were just coming back to fetch
+Andrew and then go. I wasn't cross with Kraill then. I simply crumpled
+up."
+
+There was a long silence. When he spoke again he spoke as though sharing
+a secret with her.
+
+"Do you know, I believe Kraill was playing with us both, Marcella? I
+believe he'd gauged you right, and me too. I believe he made love to
+you, knowing your cussed pride. He knew you'd turn to me, and that your
+turning to me would save me. I believe he was bluffing when he said he
+was going to take you. You never know, with men like that. Biology and
+psychology--! He's got people's bodies and brains and souls dissected,
+and nothing they can do is unaccountable to him! Men like that are
+beyond the ordinary human weaknesses, you know."
+
+She did know, very much better than he, and hugged dear thoughts as she
+smiled faintly at him.
+
+"Then he began to take whisky out and hold it up in front of me by its
+hind legs, kicking. And it looked pretty silly before he'd finished with
+it. I was sick of it, I tell you."
+
+She started. She remembered how ashamed he had made her of those
+momentary cheap thrills of hers. What was it he had said--"Like a queen
+going on the streets?"
+
+"He'd smashed me up, I tell you."
+
+"And me," she said softly.
+
+"Though I knew I'd lost you then, I knew I'd lost whisky too. All the
+striving things that had made me up, you see, were lying in ruins, and
+the whisky seemed such a disgusting, ridiculous thing it wouldn't fit in
+anywhere. Like one of those jigsaw puzzles--the whisky bit put all the
+rest out. I felt a most blissful peacefulness ... like, I suppose, when
+a cancer is taken away after months of hellish pain. You can't imagine
+it! It was just like those Salvation Army chaps you hear in the street
+sometimes talking about being at peace with God. You can see they are,
+they look so beaming! I felt like that. Only God didn't seem to come
+into it. I was just at peace with myself."
+
+She nodded, and he went on slowly:
+
+"I'm not clear about the rest. Having smashed me, you see, he began to
+put me together again. I felt I could worship him--that sounds rather
+like hot air, old girl, but it's quite true" he added, reddening a
+little. "He'd got rid of that bally cancer for me."
+
+"But how did you know--?"
+
+"How do you know the sun has risen, dear? How did that poor devil that
+was tearing himself in the tombs know that he need fear no more when
+Christ spoke to him? How did the blind man know he could see? I just
+don't know, but it happened. And Marcella, do you know what I did?
+Lord--it was awful. I cried like anything, and asked him to give you
+back to me. It came to me like a flash that I'd no right to you, that
+you and he were much righter for each other. But I just couldn't spare
+you. More selfishness! And it seemed I'd such a lot to make up to you.
+He said: 'Are you sure you can take care of her now, Louis?' I laughed.
+It seemed such cool, calm impudence the way our positions were reversed.
+He laughed too, and said: 'Queer how we still look upon women as goods
+and chattels, isn't it?'"
+
+"You didn't seem to take me into account much," she said.
+
+"Kraill answered for you in the surest possible way. And then we started
+to come back to you. He said an astonishing thing on the way back--asked
+me if I'd read a book on 'Dreams,' by a German chap named Freud. I said
+I left dreams and 'Old Moore's Almanac' to housemaids and old ladies. He
+laughed, and we talked about dreams. He told me some of his--rather racy
+ones. I told him lots of mine--those horrors I used to have, and all
+that. And he kept nodding his head, and saying: 'Yes, I thought so.'
+I've often wondered what he was getting at, or if he wasn't getting at
+anything at all, but just simply changing a difficult subject--like when
+he asked you to make that tea."
+
+"So that's that," he said at last, and talked of England. Presently she
+surprised him by saying that she very much wanted to go to Sydney.
+
+"Want to test me among pubs, old lady? Well--I am armed so strong in
+honesty that dangers are to me indifferent! I can't help swanking bits
+from 'Julius Caesar,' you know--my only Shakespeare play! But it'll be
+great to go to Sydney. Only--what are we going for? Shopping?"
+
+She evaded his question, and in a flash he thought he saw the reason for
+the journey and became very tender and considerate of her. They made
+plans immediately; he was like a child being taken out for the day. He
+kept telling her how delightful it was not to be kept on a lead; and she
+could have told him how delightful it was not to be at the controlling
+end of a lead.
+
+They left Andrew with Mrs. Twist; Marcella was very quiet during the
+drive in to Cook's Wall, though for some moments she was almost
+hysterically gay. Just beyond the station was a gang of navvies and a
+camp; the railway was pushing on to Klondyke; great Irishmen and navvies
+from all parts of Australia, drawn by the phenomenal pay, sweated and
+toiled under the blazing sun making the railway cutting. The sound of
+rumbling explosions came to them as the rocks were blasted: she watched
+the men running back with picks over their shoulders; she loved to see
+their enormous bull-like strength as they quarried the great boulders.
+
+They stayed at Mrs. King's, and went to a theatre the first night. Louis
+grew more hungry for England every moment as he came into touch with
+civilization. Marcella sat in a dream; the music that would once have
+delighted her to ecstasy was muted; the people were things moving
+without life or meaning; she answered Louis every time he spoke to her,
+but her mind was drawn in upon itself by a gnawing anxiety.
+
+The next day, leaving Louis to his own resources, she and Mrs. King went
+out.
+
+He was a little inclined to chaff them about their air of mystery, but,
+taking Marcella's tiredness and whiteness into account, he was expecting
+them to say they had been buying baby clothes, though it was rather
+unlike Marcella to keep anything secret.
+
+Her tragic face and Mrs. King's eyes, red with weeping, froze the gay
+words on his lips when they came in just before lunch, where he was
+playing a slow game of nap with some of the boys in the kitchen.
+
+They went upstairs to their old room. When the door was closed she said
+to him: "Louis, I've been to a doctor. He says I'm not well."
+
+"I knew it. I told you, didn't I? You want a change, my dear," he said
+anxiously.
+
+"I'm afraid it's rather more serious than that, Louis," she said
+gravely. "He seems to think it--it may be--cancer. Oh, I wish they'd
+call it something else! I hate that word. It's such a hungry word."
+
+She was feeling stunned, and very frightened.
+
+"But Marcella, it's ridiculous! For one thing, you're too young--"
+
+"That's what the doctor thought. But he says it's been known--in
+textbooks, you know. A girl of eighteen that he knew had it. I'm to see
+two other doctors to-morrow."
+
+He began to pace about the room. Then he laughed a little shrilly.
+
+"Oh, it's a silly mistake. Doctors are not infallible, you know! He's
+brutal to have suggested it even. Oh damn these colonials! No English
+doctor would have told you."
+
+"I insisted," she said quietly, and he guessed that the doctor was not
+to be blamed.
+
+"But," he went on, "it couldn't have happened except through an injury.
+You've had no injury that I can think of--"
+
+"No, of course I haven't," she said rapidly. "But these things seem to
+happen without cause, don't they? Anyway, we won't believe it until
+we've got to. I've been ill for months, and noticed things. I've been an
+awful fool. But I didn't think it was dangerous, and--I don't think I'd
+have cared much if I had known."
+
+The next day confirmed the first doctor's opinion. Marcella was a little
+incredulous. It did not seem to her that she was ill enough to be in
+danger. It was only when the doctors advised immediate operation that
+the horror and terror of it came flooding in upon her.
+
+"Louis, we'll tell them what we think about it to-morrow, please," she
+said.
+
+They went back to Mrs. King's almost in silence. Both of them seemed as
+creatures walking in a dream. With one accord they looked at each other
+when they got back in the room. Mrs. King, anxious-eyed, was talking to
+someone in the kitchen. To avoid having to talk to her they went up on
+the roof. The city rumbled beneath their feet, very, very much alive.
+Everything seemed to be blatantly alive, flaunting its bounding life at
+them. They sat down on the coping.
+
+Without warning she clung to him and began to cry.
+
+"Louis--please don't let me be chopped up," she sobbed. He held her as
+though he would snatch her out of life and pain and danger. But he did
+not know what to say.
+
+"Louis, I hate my body to push itself into notice like this," she cried
+after awhile. "I always did--as a child, and when Andrew was coming, I
+hated you to see me--like that--Oh and Louis, I can't die--yet--"
+
+"My darling, you're cracking me up!" he cried. "But don't think of
+dying. Surgeons don't let people die nowadays! You can't die. You're too
+much alive. You'd fight any illness--"
+
+They sat trying to think some alleviation into their misery. Presently
+she snatched herself away from him.
+
+"It's such a beastly, slinking sort of way to die! In a bed--sick and
+ill! Why can't they have wars--so that I could die quick on a
+battlefield? You wouldn't have time to be getting cold beforehand, then.
+Louis, it's like father, lying in bed till his poor heart was drowned.
+Louis--Oh--"
+
+She stopped, breathless. Her eyes narrowed; she was thinking deep down.
+
+"I wonder if it's--necessary?"
+
+He shook himself impatiently.
+
+"How can pain and illness ever be necessary?"
+
+"They may be--perhaps not to the sufferer, you know," she said, and
+would not explain what she meant. She was seeing pictures of herself
+praying for weakness--and of burning Feet--
+
+"I wish Andrew had come with us. Is there time to send for him?" she
+said presently.
+
+"Every day is important now," he said, choked.
+
+"Yes. I've not to be sentimental," she said, and tried not to grieve him
+as she remembered very vividly her own sick misery when her father and
+mother were ill and there was nothing she could do.
+
+But even as she tried to be brave little fears would crop up, little
+jets of horror burst out and wring words from her lips.
+
+"Louis, it's the beastliness of it, you know," she cried. "Imagine
+something taking possession of your body against your will. I hate that.
+Like a madman seizing hold of you--like that gorse being burnt out and
+growing up and breaking through other things that tried to grow--"
+
+Louis was dumb. After awhile, when she had thought and thought again,
+she said:
+
+"I'm a wretched coward to say these things to you. It makes it harder
+for you. But I can't help it. Kraill was right when he said I'd got to
+cracking-point. If I were heroic I'd lie down and be a beautiful
+invalid, waiting for a happy release. It would be easier for you if I
+could. Louis, I just can't. It wouldn't be honest. If I die, it won't be
+a beautiful spectacle, my dear. I'll fight every inch of the way!
+There's such a lot of me to kill. I'm so alive, and I love to be alive.
+It--it won't be dignified--"
+
+"Oh God, I wish I were a Christian, or a theosophist, or something, and
+believed people went on!" he groaned.
+
+"I don't want to go on anywhere else," she said. "I want to go on here
+with you and Andrew. And I want to see Dr. Angus and Aunt Janet and all
+the others at Lashnagar--and--No, I don't want to see him," she added,
+and thought again for a while in silence. "I don't need to--"
+
+He looked at her quickly, and said nothing.
+
+"Louis, do you think I've been wrong? I remember I said something to
+Kraill about not wanting to die, though it seemed worlds away then. And
+he said: 'It seems to me that you take too much on yourself. Are you
+the ultimate kindliness of the world?' Perhaps it will be better for
+Andrew if I'm not there--Oh, but that's morbid!"
+
+"It is," he said decidedly. "And you're not going to die--"
+
+She broke in quickly: "Just think if this had happened last year! I'd
+have been frantic for fear of leaving you and Andrew. Why, I would never
+have dared to go to the hospital, for fear of what might happen to you
+while I was there. And now I'm not a bit afraid of that."
+
+"Then don't be afraid at all. Look here, let's talk as if you're not my
+Marcella at all, dear. Let's talk as if you were someone we're both keen
+about. Can't you see that you're in very little danger, really? You're
+so young, and so tremendously hard--"
+
+She tried to make him think she was reassured, but a little later the
+fear cropped out again.
+
+"If I die," she said quietly, "what are you going to do? No, don't look
+miserable about it. I'm miserable enough for two of us, goodness knows.
+But people have been known not to wake up after an operation, haven't
+they?"
+
+"Just as they've been known to be run over by a taxi," he said.
+
+"Yes. Well then, let's try to be quite unemotional about this stranger
+called Marcella that we're both keen about. If she did happen to finish
+up--out of sheer cussedness and desire to make a sensation, next week,
+you'd be the victim of a ghost, Louis! I'd simply have to be back to see
+what you're up to! You know what a managing sort of person Marcella is,
+don't you?"
+
+He made a desperate effort to be unemotional, and presently he said,
+very decidedly:
+
+"I know now what I'm going to do, old girl! I absolutely refuse to allow
+illness to go on! There! That's a challenge to the Almighty, if He likes
+to take it--"
+
+She laughed gently, with tears in her eyes.
+
+"I feel helpless. And I'm fed up with feeling helpless. That
+socialization of knowledge has got to begin, or I'll--Oh. I don't know!
+Look at the idiocy of it! Here we are in the twentieth century, and
+people are dying like flies all over the show. Why, there's no room for
+houses because there's so much room needed for grave-yards! And--even
+if they don't die, they're ill, most of them. And I'm not going to have
+it!"
+
+"Louis! What are you going to do?" she said, staring at him, taken out
+of her fear by his enthusiasm. "I've never seen you like this before."
+
+"No. I never have been. But this business of illness has just come and
+touched me on the raw, you see! You ought not to be ill. It's waste and
+lunacy to think of it. And I--ten years of my life wasted by a neurosis!
+And your father, and Lord knows how many millions more! I'll tell you
+this much, Marcella! Before five years have gone by I'll be in the
+battlefield against illness, and I'll be damned if illness won't have to
+look out! I loathe it, just as you do! I resent it! I'm going to stop
+it. Listen, old girl, as soon as you're out of that hospital, you're off
+to England, and I'm going to the Pater, and I'm going on my knees to beg
+him to give me another go at the hospital. I've got to get my tools
+ready, you know--"
+
+"Do you think your father will?"
+
+"He'll be sceptical. I should if I were he. I've been such a bounder to
+him in the past. But if he's too sceptical to help--well, I'll go to
+Buckingham Palace and ask King George to lend me the money! I should
+think he'd be jolly glad to think there was a chance of wiping out
+illness for ever."
+
+Tears brimmed over: it was when she saw the eternal child in Louis that
+she loved him most, and was most afraid for him; not afraid now that he
+would waste himself again, but afraid that he would never touch the
+mountain-tops at which he was aiming.
+
+"Yes, we'll go home," she said dreamily. "And I'll take you on
+Lashnagar--and we'll see them all again. I'll ask Uncle to give us the
+money to take us home. This wretched illness will take all we have."
+
+"Don't you worry about your Uncle's money," he said grimly. "I'll see to
+that! Marcella, there's nothing I can't do now. If only I hadn't
+monkeyed about at the hospital, probably I'd have had the knowledge to
+save you all this now."
+
+"Why, how silly!" she laughed. "If you hadn't monkeyed about at the
+hospital we should never have met!"
+
+The next day she went into hospital: as the anesthetic broke over her in
+delicious warm waves she was frantically afraid that she was going to
+die; it seemed to her that these calm, business-like surgeons and nurses
+only treated her as one of millions, not realizing that she was Marcella
+Lashcairn, immensely important to Louis and Andrew. She began to feel
+that it would be much better if she did not have an anesthetic at all,
+and superintended the whole business herself intelligently. It seemed
+wrong that she should have no hand in a thing of such profound
+importance. Then her will relaxed a little and she was horribly afraid
+that she would feel sharp knives through the anesthetic. A blinding
+flash of realization abased her utterly. Just on the borders of
+unconsciousness she saw Kraill looking at her with his beautiful eyes
+clouded with disappointment.
+
+"He knows I'm afraid of being cut up--and he knows I'm afraid of dying
+I--Naturally he knows--he lives in my imagination!--and he wanted my
+courage--But I'm not really frightened, you know. Can't you see I'm
+not?"
+
+It became immediately necessary to explain this to Kraill. She tried to
+push the mask away. A very steady, pleasant voice was saying "breathe
+deeply," and she realized that she had once more been taken up by things
+much stronger and wiser than herself: quite conceivably they might make
+a mess of her, hurt her and even kill her. But they were doing wisely;
+and anyway, she herself could do nothing more--buoyant warm waves took
+her up and carried her right away from caring.
+
+When she wakened again all fear had gone; she was conscious of a burning
+corkscrew boring into her body somewhere, but she was too lazy to
+localize it. A long, long time after that she saw sunshine and smelt
+something very beautiful.
+
+She focussed her eyes on something that swayed drunkenly: after awhile
+it stood still, and she saw that it was a little blue vase filled with
+boronia. The breeze from the open window was tapping the blind softly to
+and fro, and wafting the scent of the boronia over her face. Then she
+saw Louis's face, very white, above her.
+
+"All right, old girl?" he whispered.
+
+She tried to find her hand to raise it to him, but it seemed so far
+from her that she would have to go to the end of the world to fetch it.
+And that was too far. So she smiled at him.
+
+"You're all right, you see," he said nervously. "Gloomy forebodings are
+so silly, aren't they?"
+
+"I--thought I should feel it," she said.
+
+"I told you you wouldn't, didn't I? The nurse said you took an awful
+time to go under--"
+
+"Yes. I wanted to explain something. And I wanted to help the
+surgeons--I thought I'd--do it--much better than they could."
+
+"Just like you, old lady," he said, with his eyes wet.
+
+"Silly to fight, Louis--strong things--wise things--like those
+surgeons--even if they are making awful pains for you to bear--"
+
+"I wouldn't talk, darling," he whispered anxiously, his face against
+hers.
+
+"I'm not talking, Louis--I'm thinking," she said anxiously. "Something I
+was thinking--all mixed up with old Wullie, and a pathway. It seems to
+me God is like those surgeons--only--strong and wise, you know--only He
+never gives you chloroform, does He?"
+
+She lost sight of Louis's face then for a very long time.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+
+Three months later they were aboard a P. and O. steamer, calling their
+good-byes to Mrs. King and half a dozen of the boys, and Mr. and Mrs.
+Twist who had come all the way from Loose End to see them off.
+
+Marcella had stayed in hospital for two months; for another month she
+had been struggling with inability to begin life again in a nursing home
+overlooking the thunders of the Pacific. Louis had gone back to the
+Homestead. He would not explain what he was going to do. He merely
+fetched Andrew, and put him in charge of Mrs. King, who brought him
+every day to see her. And then he vanished. But she had no fears for
+him. They had vanished; her sudden yielding to the chloroform in the
+hospital had been symbolical of a deeper yielding; she felt that these
+strong, wise forces of her life, if pain became unendurable, would
+either cure it or find an anesthetic for it.
+
+And one day, towards the end of the three months, Louis had come to the
+nursing home to see her. His hands, as he seized her passionately, felt
+hard and stuck to her thin silk blouse.
+
+"Louis!" she cried, taking one of the hands in hers, which had grown
+very soft and white, "I've seen them pretty bad before with the gorse.
+But whatever have you been doing? Where have you been? They're like a
+navvy's hands!"
+
+"Were you worried about me, old girl?" he asked.
+
+"No, but dreadfully curious," she began. He took a roll of dirty notes
+out of his pocket and threw it in her lap.
+
+"Look! Alone I did it! Monish, old girl! Filthy lucre! Just enough to
+take us home. I meant to do it off my own bat, without asking your
+uncle!"
+
+"But how on earth could you, in the time?" she asked.
+
+"Navvying! That bally railway cutting at Cook's Wall! Lord, Marcella, if
+I don't get the Pater to pay for me to go to the hospital, I'll do a
+year first on the music-halls as the modern Hercules. I should make
+millions! My hands were blistered till they got like iron; my back felt
+broken; I used to lie awake at nights and weep till I got toughened. I
+had a few fights, too."
+
+"Why? Didn't they like you?"
+
+"No, they're not so silly as you. They resented my English
+particularly, and they resented my funking whisky when they were all
+boozing. They thought I was being superior. Lord, if they'd known! One
+night, when they were calling me Jesus' Little Lamb and Wonky Willie, I
+saw red and tackled an Irishman. Of course, he knocked me out of time. I
+knew he would. And just to show them that I wasn't wonky, and wasn't a
+Cocoa Fiend--that was another name they had for me--I downed a tumbler
+full of whisky neat."
+
+She drew a deep breath.
+
+"Oh, don't worry! It made me damned sick! Lord, wasn't I bad! There's
+something in my brain so fed up with the stuff that my body won't give
+it house-room."
+
+"Good thing too," said Marcella.
+
+"I'm not so sure," he said reflectively. "In a way, it's weak. Whisky
+still beats me, you see. There ought not to be anything on earth one's
+afraid of."
+
+"I think that's a bit morbid. I'm very much afraid of snails, and I
+certainly don't think I'm called upon to go and caress snails."
+
+"Ah, this is different. This isn't physical. It's psychological. Just
+as, once, I hungered for whisky, now I loathe and dread it. The ideal
+thing would be to be indifferent to it. That may come in time."
+
+Marcella asked him nothing about herself. What the doctors had told him
+she did not know: she was content to wait. All she wanted, now, was to
+get home.
+
+They stayed a week in London with Louis's people. It was pathetic to see
+the mother's wistful anxiety and the father's open scepticism change to
+confidence as the week went by.
+
+"He's a changeling, my dear," said Mrs. Fame to Marcella when, in spite
+of the old lady's wish to keep them in London, they told her they must
+go North.
+
+"Louis has always been a puzzle to me," said his father. "Even as a
+little chap he did things I couldn't understand--selfish things,
+crooked things--I don't understand what has happened to him."
+
+"If I told you you would think General Booth had been getting at me,"
+said Marcella. "But Louis will explain it all to you, some day."
+
+From the slowly dawning pride on the father's face and the pathetic
+hope of the mother Marcella guessed that Louis would not have to raise
+his fees on the music-halls.
+
+The winds were black and wintry already round the station at Carlossie
+as the train drew in. Marcella had wired that she was coming, giving no
+explanations. Andrew had been very fidgety. He was wearing his first
+small suit and what he gained in dignity from knickers and three pockets
+he lost in comfort. At last he fell asleep. Marcella looked from him to
+Louis and felt that it was very childish of her, but she was really
+anxious to get them both home, put them on exhibition, as it were. She
+had never got over the feeling that Andrew had not merely happened, but
+was a voluntary achievement. Lately she had had the same idea about
+Louis. She wanted to see the effect of them both upon the people at
+home.
+
+The station at Carlossie was just the same: it looked much smaller, and
+the people, too, seemed smaller. Dr. Angus was there in his Inverness
+cape, smiling with the same air of conscious achievement as Marcella
+felt.
+
+"So ye're back again, Mrs. Marcella? I knew we'd be getting ye back
+soon. And bringing two men with ye!"
+
+He shook hands gravely with Andrew and gave Louis a swift, appraising
+look that seemed to satisfy him.
+
+"Your aunt's getting a wee bit frail, Mrs. Marcella! So I brought the
+old machine along."
+
+They climbed into the machine--his old, high dog-cart, and drove along
+through tearing winds which were like the greeting embraces of friends
+to Marcella. The doctor told her all the news; all about the new babies,
+and the few deaths and illnesses while she had been away. The dashing of
+the water on the beach came to them. He told her that Jock had been
+washed from his little boat one rough night, and his body had never been
+found. The reek of the green wood fires came to them on the salt breeze.
+
+"What's that remind you of, Louis?" she asked him.
+
+"Gorse!" he said with a grimace.
+
+"I love it!" she said simply.
+
+The door of Wullie's hut stood open. He was silhouetted dark against the
+light within. The doctor drew up.
+
+"Must stop and speak to Wullie," he said rather apologetically, to
+Louis. The old man came out and stood looking at Marcella. He did not
+seem a day older.
+
+"So ye're back again, Marcella?" he said. "I knew ye'd be back! I knew
+ye'd soon wear the wings off yer feet! But ye're not well?"
+
+"How could I be, away from home?" she said gently. "I'll be well again
+here."
+
+Tammas came up then, with his wife and the six big children Marcella
+knew, and two littler ones she had never seen. Jock's Bessie came out
+and put a small bundle on the floor of the machine.
+
+"Juist a cookie for the bit laddie," she explained.
+
+They all stared at Louis and then spoke to him: he got the idea that
+they were sizing him up, calling him to account for how he had dealt
+with Marcella, who belonged to them. They claimed young Andrew whom they
+coolly called "Andrew Lashcairn." As they drove on through the village
+they took on something of the nature of a triumphal progress, for
+everyone came out, and talked. And everyone seemed to be Marcella's
+owners.
+
+Aunt Janet was on the step when they reached the farm: her eagle face
+was thinner, quite fleshless; in her black silk frock, shivered at the
+seams, and the great cairngorm brooch, she looked quite terrifying.
+
+"So you're back, Marcella? I knew you would be coming back," she said.
+
+Louis wondered if this were the stock greeting at Lashnagar.
+
+"I wonder what you've got for going across the world?" she said. "You're
+not well."
+
+"I've got my two men," laughed Marcella, as she kissed the old lady.
+
+"Humphm!" said Aunt Janet. "He'd have found you out if you'd stayed here
+all the time."
+
+"Do you know, Marcella," said Louis, as they went along the windy
+passages to her father's room in which Aunt Janet had elected to put
+them. "I've an extraordinary feeling that I've nothing to do with you
+any more. All these people--they seem to own you! You're an elusive
+young beggar, you know. First Kraill--I had to ask his permission to
+keep you. Now a whole village full!"
+
+She shook her head and put her hand in his.
+
+"Who's got me most, do you think?"
+
+He answered as he thought.
+
+There was a great spurting wood fire on the hearth in the book-room. As
+she looked round Marcella saw that most of the furniture left in the
+farm had been brought in. Jean came in, carrying a dish of scones.
+Andrew ran straight to her, just as Marcella used to. She explained that
+she had come back because the mistress was lonely without her, and she
+could not get used to any ways but those of the farm.
+
+The doctor stayed to the meal. There was no bread on the table. Louis
+seemed surprised to see the oatcakes and the cheese and the herrings. To
+Marcella they were a feast of heaven. They put young Andrew in old
+Andrew's chair beneath the dusty pennant. He sat with his fat brown legs
+swinging, exceedingly conscious of their manly appearance which he
+compared with his father's and the doctor's, delighted to see that the
+doctor's old tweed knickerbockers were very much the same shape as his.
+
+"There's bramble jelly for the boy," said Aunt Janet, who scarcely took
+her eyes from him for a moment. "Mrs. Mactavish sends me some every
+year--one pot. There's been four pots since you went away. And I've
+never been minded to open one. Maybe it's mouldered now."
+
+They talked quietly; out on Lashnagar the winds began to howl; in the
+passages they shrieked and whined, and whistled and groaned in the
+chimney sending out little puffs of smoke. Up above their heads
+something scuttled swiftly. The little boy forgot his dignity and drew
+nearer to his mother.
+
+"That's the rats, Andrew," said Aunt Janet, watching him. His mother
+explained that rats were a pest, to be hunted out like rabbits in
+Australia.
+
+He drew away from her then and stood with his back to the fire, his
+hands behind.
+
+"Andwew kill wats," he announced. "Wiv a big stick."
+
+The doctor and Louis smoked and talked together of days forty years ago
+in Edinburgh, of days seven years ago at St. Crispin's. Marcella and
+Aunt Janet spoke softly, sitting by the fire.
+
+"I wouldn't be sitting so near the fire, Marcella. You'll have all the
+colour taken out of your skirt. Not that it matters particularly," said
+Aunt Janet.
+
+"It's lovely by the fire," murmured Marcella.
+
+Aunt Janet reached over suddenly and spread an old plaid shawl over the
+girl's knees. She suddenly felt that Louis and Andrew and the last four
+years were unreal and dreamlike. They had happened to her, but now she
+was back home again, being told what to do.
+
+Andrew began to rub his eyes.
+
+"Yell be getting away to your bed now, Andrew," said Aunt Janet.
+
+Jean stood up, waiting for him. He hugged his father and mother, shook
+hands with the doctor and looked searchingly at Aunt Janet before he
+kissed her. She put her hand behind the curtain, rustled a piece of
+paper and gave him an acid drop.
+
+"I used tae pit Marcella, yer mither, tae her bed when she was a wee
+thing," said Jean, taking his small brown hand. He put the sweet into
+his mouth and trotted off beside her. At the door he stopped to kiss his
+hand to his mother. The rats scuttled across the floor above; one in the
+wainscoting scratched and gnawed. Andrew hesitated and came back a few
+steps. They were all watching him.
+
+"Mummy!" he began in a very thin little voice. Marcella started as if to
+go to him, and sat back suddenly.
+
+"Andwew will kill wats--wiv a big stick," he said, and marched out of
+the room before Jean.
+
+Before a week had gone by it seemed to Marcella that she had never been
+away from Lashnagar. The place wrapped her round, took possession of
+her. She took Louis down to the huts to see Wullie; she toasted herrings
+over the fire, and Louis was unexpectedly friendly; the only difference
+was that Jock was not there any more when the fishing boats came in; and
+where she had left girls and boys she found young men and women and
+little babies: they grew up quickly on the hillside. Louis went with her
+on Ben Grief and saw the old grey house. He wandered on Lashnagar and
+looked down the terrifying chasms, and heard the screaming of the gulls;
+and he was unutterably wretched and out of it all.
+
+On Lashnagar he said to her, one day:
+
+"Marcella, it ought to be made compulsory for people, before they think
+of being married, to find out all about each other's youth."
+
+"Like that poem of poor Lamb's?" she said. "Oh thou dearer than a
+brother! Why wast thou not born within my father's dwelling? So might we
+talk of the old familiar faces--Yes, I believe there's a lot in it."
+
+"Since I've been here and seen things, I've understood you better.
+Seeing your home, and mine, and thinking how we were the products of
+those homes! I'm glad young Andrew is here, till it's time for him to go
+to school. I see where you get your friendliness that used to shock me,
+and your hardness. I'd like him to get it all."
+
+"I was hoping to protect him from it," she said. "But I know you're
+right, really," she said slowly.
+
+That was the day before he went south to Edinburgh to join the hospital.
+His mother wanted him in London, and his father wrote saying that his
+old room was ready for him. But Louis told them that Marcella must be at
+Lashnagar, and Edinburgh was nearer Lashnagar than London was. Dr. Angus
+felt personally responsible for the resources of Edinburgh when he heard
+the news and once again he made a pilgrimage, taking Louis to his old
+rooms in Montague Street, and doing the honours of the city with a
+proprietorial air. He took to running down to Edinburgh quite
+frequently; he said he was brushing up his knowledge.
+
+The winter passed; Louis spent Christmas at Lashnagar and then took
+Marcella and the boy to London. Marcella was feeling very ill, but he
+was too happy and too full of his work to notice it. She was very glad
+to get back again, to sleep in her father's old four-poster bed looking
+out on Ben Grief. When he had gone back to Edinburgh she spent many
+wakeful nights, drawn in upon herself, thinking herself to nothingness
+like a Buddhist monk until pain brought her to realization again. In
+those hours she thought much of her father and heard his voice in her
+ears, saw him standing there before her, clinging to the post as he
+prayed for strength. Louis wrote her immense letters: sometimes in the
+night she would light her candle and read them with tears blinding her
+eyes and an unspeaking gratitude in her heart. She said nothing to Aunt
+Janet about her illness in Sydney, or about her pain, but one evening
+the old lady, looking across the firelit hearth, said quietly:
+
+"I shall outlive you, Marcella. Seems foolish! You--young, all tingling
+for life and joy, and people to care about you. I like a last year's
+leaf before the wind, dried and dead. The one shall be taken and the
+other left. It seems foolish."
+
+"How did you know? Did Louis tell you?" asked Marcella in a low voice.
+The pain had been unbearable all day but she had wrapt herself in a
+great cape of her father's and taken it out on Lashnagar, where no one
+could see her, leaving Andrew at the hut with Wullie. For a long time
+she had lost consciousness, to waken very cold in the winter dusk.
+
+"No, Louis said nothing. But I've eyes. You're marked for death. I saw
+it when you came in at the door that night. Besides, you and I are very
+much alike, so I understand you. And you're getting very much like your
+mother."
+
+"I think I'll see Dr. Angus to-morrow," said Marcella presently. "But I
+don't think it's much use. That's the worst of being married to an
+enthusiastic medical student! You know so much!"
+
+The wood crackled for a while before Aunt Janet spoke.
+
+"We are getting wiped out, Marcella! Only an old stick like me, who has
+repressed everything, lives to tell the tale. I've ruled myself never to
+feel anything."
+
+"I'm glad I haven't. I'd rather be smashed up with pain than be dead.
+You see, Aunt Janet, you repressed things and I took them out and walked
+over them."
+
+"Maybe I would if I had my time to go over again. But I don't know. It's
+a blessing not to feel. I'm fond of you, you know, but I scarcely felt
+your going away. And I don't suppose I shall feel your dying very much."
+
+"You care about Andrew," said Marcella quickly.
+
+"Yes, I care about Andrew," said Aunt Janet and gathered herself into
+the past.
+
+The next day Marcella went to see Dr. Angus who was horrified and
+incredulous, and wired for a specialist from Edinburgh. Marcella knew it
+was all useless, and when the specialist went away after talking to Dr.
+Angus, without saying anything more about operations, she felt very
+glad.
+
+Louis suspected nothing; he was working very hard for his first
+examination the week before Easter and she would not have him worried;
+she wrote to him every day, though writing grew more and more difficult.
+She fought desperately against being an invalid and staying in bed, but
+at last she had to give way; Dr. Angus came every day and talked to her
+for hours; sometimes he gave her morphia; once or twice when the pain
+had stranded her almost unbreathing on a shore of numbness and
+exhaustion she wished that she had died in the hospital in Sydney: but
+not for long; in spite of the pain she wanted to live. Once or twice,
+when all was quiet, and the pain was having its night-time orgy with
+her, she cried out in the unbearable agony of it. She would have no one
+with her at nights, but Aunt Janet's uncanny penetration guessed at the
+pain and she made Dr. Angus leave morphia tablets for her. At first,
+though they were at her hand, she refused them.
+
+"I don't want to waste time in unconsciousness," she said once. Later,
+she grew glad to waste time: she understood how her father used to pray
+for drugs when he was too tired to pray for courage in those weary
+nights of his. Another time she said that it was cowardly: Louis, in his
+whisky days, had been seeking anesthesia from painful thoughts; she was
+too proud to seek it for a painful body. She tried hard, too, to keep
+shining Kraill's conception of her courage; she did not realize that he
+would never know, however much she gave way: always, for her, he lived
+just on the threshold of her consciousness.
+
+One day when the doctor was sitting beside her and she had got out of a
+maze of pain into a buoyant sea of bodily unconsciousness, she talked to
+him about his letter in which he had grieved at his inadequacy. Then
+she told him about Louis, and about Kraill, for she thought it might
+encourage him to know how the miracle of healing had come about.
+
+"He wrote to me this morning, doctor," she said. "Will you feel under my
+pillow and get the letter? I know he wouldn't mind your reading it."
+
+The doctor unfolded the thick bundle of pages and read--and as he read
+he saw that the words were all blurred by tears, and guessed that they
+were certainly not tears shed by the exuberant young man who had written
+the letter.
+
+"Three cheers, old girl. The week of torture is past! I know I got
+through. I simply sailed through. My brain is a fifty times better
+machine than it was seven years ago. And they're accommodating at these
+Scotch medical schools. I told 'em I'd got through part of my Final in
+London before the bust-up came, and the Dean sent for me to-day and said
+it seemed a pity for me to slog at the donkey-work again, when I knew
+it. So we talked it over, and he says I ought to do the Final next year.
+And then, Marcella, look out! I've told you I've laid down my challenge
+to sickness! I'll have it whacked before I die. I can't see why anyone
+should die except of senile decay or accident--and those we'll eliminate
+in time! I feel that there's only a dyke of matchboarding between me and
+the ocean of knowledge. One day it's going to break, and I'll be flooded
+with it. It's a most uncanny feeling, old girl. One of the chaps here--a
+rather mad American--says that there are people who've broken that dyke
+down--Shakespeare, for instance. (But if I broke it down, I wouldn't be
+such a footler as to write plays and poems, would you?) Corlyon--that's
+the mad American--is the son of a big psychologist at Harvard; he gave
+me some light on Kraill's remark about dreams that day. He says they're
+being used a lot by some German and American alienists in curing all
+sorts of neuroses. (By the way, old girl, next time you write, tell me
+if you understand all these technicalities. I want you to understand
+them, and if you don't I'll explain as I go on. One never can be sure
+about you. Sometimes you seem no end of a duffer, and next minute you
+come out with an amazing piece of penetration.) Well, these new
+psychologists say that things like drinking, sex, drugging, kleptomania,
+and all these bally nuisances that make people impossible members of a
+community, come from repression. A man has a perfectly well-meaning
+impulse to do something. His education, or his religion or his
+convention tells him it's wrong, so he represses it. He fights it,
+pushes it back. It gets encysted and, in time, forms a spiritual
+abscess. It's got to break through. Of course, the idea is not to
+repress things at all. I don't say let things rip, and go in for a whole
+glorious orgy of wine, woman and song. But take the desire out, have a
+talk with it, and make it look silly like Kraill made whisky look silly
+to me. There, I thought that would interest you. (A bit more proof how
+damnably clever he was!)
+
+"Marcella, I told you then I'd be the same to you as Kraill was, didn't
+I? I worshipped you; I wanted you; you were my saviour, and I'd have
+picked up the Great Pyramid and walked off staggering with it if you'd
+asked me. That was the path that carried me over my particular messy
+morass (that, and my acquisitive spirit that objected to giving up part
+of my goods and chattels!) And now--listen here, old lady! It's a thing
+a chap couldn't say to most of his wives. I can say it to you and know
+that you'll understand. (That's the heavenly safeness of you. You do
+understand, and never judge resentfully) Marcella, I'm going to be the
+sort of man Kraill is! And I'm going to be it not for you at all now!
+I'm going to be bigger than he, even. And I know he'll be big enough to
+be glad if I am. A good doctor's reward is in his patient's recovery,
+and in a way, whatever the patient does afterwards counts to the doctor,
+doesn't it? So now, old girl, if there was no you on earth, I'd still
+keep my tail up! Put that in your pipe of peace and smoke it! Different
+days, isn't it to the time when I couldn't be sent to buy a baby's
+feeding-bottle without getting boozed? I knew you'd like to know that.
+Oh, wasn't I a fool to think you wanted to tie me to your apron strings?
+I've got to neglect you for a bit now. I've got to run on without you,
+dear. Thank God you're not the sort to get huffy about it, and want me
+dancing attendance on you. A man with a man's job to do can't have time
+for the softness of women about him: he can't stop to look to right or
+left! But when I'm in Harley Street--well there! No more decayed castles
+or wooden huts for you!
+
+"I'm aching to see you, Marcella. It's the Mater's birthday on Easter
+Sunday, so I'm running down to see her on Saturday. I shall travel back
+by that train that leaves Euston at midnight on Sunday. It's great to be
+away from you, because it's so great to come back."
+
+The doctor looked at her as he put the letter down, and blew his nose
+and polished his glasses.
+
+"Two or three years ago I'd have been sick to think I was only the
+bridge to carry him over--to his job. But now--" She smiled a little,
+wondering why he should talk to her of the softness of women, that he
+must dispense with for a while; and Kraill had seen her hard, and asked
+her to be courageous for him!
+
+After the doctor had gone Andrew came in, warm and rosy from his bath.
+He had had a glorious day on the beach with Wullie; he scrambled into
+Jean's arms to be carried to bed, because they had forgotten his
+slippers and his feet were cold.
+
+"Night, night, mummy," he said. "Inve morning I shan't wake you up, 'cos
+I'm going to see the boats come in at five! An' Jean's putting oatcake
+in my pocket--like a man--!"
+
+He went off, laughing. After he was in bed, she heard him singing for a
+long time until his voice droned away to drowsiness.
+
+She lay silent and motionless. Aunt Janet came in. She took up the
+hypodermic syringe impassively. Marcella shook her head.
+
+"No. I want to think to-night. Louis's coming on Monday. I've to think
+of some way of not letting him know how ill I am, because of his work,"
+she said. "But will you put pencil and paper where I can get it?"
+
+"You'll not be writing letters to-night, Marcella?" said Aunt Janet.
+
+"No. I'm going to make my will," she laughed. "I've only Louis and
+Andrew to leave--"
+
+Her aunt kissed her and turned away. Through the open window came the
+soft roar of the sea. It was very still to-night; the moon shone across
+it, but that she could not see: she had seen it so often that it was
+there in her imagination. On Ben Grief the shadows lay inky in the
+silver light. She looked at the syringe, and then at the tabloids, and
+sighed a little; the pain was a thing tearing and burning; several times
+she tried to begin to write and had to lie back with closed eyes
+floating away on a sea of horror. Several times her hand quivered
+towards the tabloids and came back to the pencil. The shadows seemed to
+jostle each other about the room. Kraill's eyes shone out of them for an
+instant, blue and impelling. She got a grip on herself and wrote, a word
+at a time, making each letter with proud precision:
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+DEAR PROFESSOR KRAILL,
+
+I am sending you a letter I had from my husband to-day. Have you
+forgotten us, and that wonderful thing you did out in the Bush? You told
+me then that you liked to interfere in other people's business, but that
+they didn't always take the interfering nicely. I want you to know what
+your interfering has meant to us.
+
+You will gather from Louis's letter what you meant to him. It is more
+difficult to explain what you meant to me. Can you understand if I say
+you've been a constant goad to me? It would have been easier for me if I
+had never seen you, because you have been the censor of my spirit ever
+since. After you went away I was blazing with misery. I hadn't got so
+far as you, you see. I was passionately wishing that I'd known you when
+you were more on my level. And I saw that you had had a vision of me
+that was very much better than I shall ever be now. As Oliver Wendell
+Holmes wrote, there are three Marcellas--the one Marcella herself knows,
+the one the people round about know, and the one God knows. That was the
+one you saw for a minute and, not to disappoint you, I've had to live up
+to it. It hasn't been easy. As you will see from his letter, even Louis
+doesn't need me now. And as for my boy--I know now, that though beasts
+claw at his life and colds and hungers and desolations come to him, they
+cannot put out the shine of him. But for me it has been very lonely. I
+wanted to be the thing of soft corners and seduction that you were
+sickened of. I had to rip myself to bits and make myself the rather
+rarefied sort of thing you demanded. I didn't dare not to be brave,
+because you were so much enthroned in my life that every thought was a
+deliberate homage to you. I might have got considerably happy, and found
+many thrills out of thinking about you softly, imagining kisses,
+adventures, perhaps. Many women would, and I'm sure many men. I couldn't
+do that because it would have made you less shining, though more dear in
+my mind. And when I tell you that almost ever since you went away I have
+been very ill, much of the time in horrible pain, you will see that you
+gave me something to live up to when you said you needed my courage.
+There's a fight going on all the time between my spirit and my body.
+Sometimes, when the pain has been appalling, I have thought I would
+write to you and ask you to release me from being brave. But I did not
+want to seem to you a tortured thing--Sometimes, too, I have
+deliberately pushed the morphia on one side and stuck it out. It was one
+way of getting my own back on this bundle of nerves and sensations that
+has played such havoc with me and that, as you scornfully told me, has
+once or twice cheapened me to an unworthy pleasure--'like a queen going
+on the streets.' I've been damned, damned, by this overlordship of the
+body. Now I'm going to get rid of it, and even now I don't want to! I
+know now I am dying, and there is morphia here under my hand. But I'll
+be damned in pain rather than be beaten by it! I won't die a cow's
+death, as the old Norsemen used to call it! I'll fight every inch of the
+way.--But I wish Aunt Janet would come in and jab the needle in me,
+forcibly. That would be quite honourable, wouldn't it?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The candle began to flicker and, turning, she saw that it was spending
+its last dying flame. It was impossible to write. She lay still,
+watching the glimmering dark square of the window. She could not see
+another candle there. All she could see was the little phial of
+tabloids. But she lay back and let the pain fasten on her. The blazing
+needles that were piercing her, the blazing hammers that were battering
+her, gathered in fury and for a few merciful hours she lost
+consciousness.
+
+When she wakened again the pain had completely gone and the first faint
+cool light was struggling through the mists on Ben Grief. She groped
+about the counterpane and found her pencil, and went on writing. This
+time the letters were not so proudly neat. Many of them were shaky and
+spindlelegged and she knew it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The candle went out, then. Some hours have passed, and with them the
+pain. A very beautiful thing has come to me;--the peace that passeth
+all understanding until you've lost your body. I understand now, very
+well. Our lives are just God's pathway, and we get in His way and have
+to be hurt before He can get along us. I was, unconsciously, His pathway
+to Louis until you came along--and you were a smoother pathway than I.
+His feet have blazed along my life now, burning out all the
+roughnesses--crushing me down. It's been a heavy weight to carry--the
+burden of salvation. It is such a heavy weight that one can't carry
+anything else. I tried to carry myself, and prides and hungers and love
+for you. All of them had to be blazed out.--No--not the love. That could
+not go. That and the courage will go on; pity perhaps will go, for only
+our bodies are pitiful. But the love is deathless. God's banner over me
+was love. I think I've read that somewhere His footmarks over my life
+were love. I've not read that. I had to find it out--slowly, hungrily,
+painfully, strivingly, because I've always been such a fool. But just
+this minute I've seen that I've been God's Fool--and God is Love.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The sun came up behind the pines on Ben Grief, golden and silver in the
+April morning. Very faintly came the voices of the fishermen; in the
+next room she heard small, busy sounds; two faint falls made her smile.
+Andrew had mechanically put on his shoes, thought better of it and
+kicked them off again. She heard him creep along the landing to her door
+and listen. When she tried to call him to come and kiss her she found
+that her voice had died. She heard him say, quietly:
+
+"Mummy's fast asleep," and smiled again as she felt that he was running
+through the unbarred door shrieking and laughing in the delight of the
+soft air, the dancing sea, the kindly sun. She knew that he had not
+washed his face, and worried a little about it, and then smiled again.
+
+His voice grew fainter. She tried to lift her hand to fold her letter.
+It felt as though it were miles away from her, and too heavy to move.
+
+"Why, I'm dying now," she thought, and was surprised to find it such an
+ordinary, unvolitional thing to do. It was very good to do something
+unvolitional, very restful.--Little snappings sounded in her ears, and
+distant crashings and thunders as of a storm perceived by a deaf man who
+can see and understand without hearing.
+
+She thought very clearly of Death for a moment, and then of God. She had
+often thought of Death and of God, and was surprised to find that she
+had been wrong about both.
+
+"I thought--He never gave you--anesthetics--" she told herself. "Why,
+that's what death is--"
+
+Then came the clear vision of God--not the Great Being with devastating
+feet at all: He seemed to be like the surgeon in Sydney, for a moment,
+very sure of His work, very strong, very much stronger and wiser than
+she was. It was no use at all to fight a thing so wise and strong and
+tender--
+
+At that moment, as this most beautiful, most kindly thing came to her,
+she wanted to tell Kraill about it, so that he should be filled with the
+beauty of it without having to come to death to find it out. The pencil
+was in her hand, resting on the page. Her brain willed her fingers to
+conquer their heaviness, their farawayness, and write:
+
+"God seems like you when you told me I needn't be frightened about Louis
+any more--"
+
+The crashings in her ears grew fainter. More light came.
+
+"No. He is more than that. He is the sun that is shining and the soft
+noise that is coming up from the sea--and Andrew's laughing--No--those
+were only His robes that I was looking at!--God is the courage you
+loved--God is the courage; His clothes are loving-kindness--"
+
+In that moment that the structure of her life fell inwards she saw still
+more.
+
+"I know now that I need not regret all these greeds and hungers and
+prides of mine that have been unfulfilled. They have been burned out by
+the courage and the loving-kindness--"
+
+The pencil rolled on to the floor; what her spirit had willed to tell
+him her fingers had made a weak scrawl of straggling, futile marks.
+
+
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