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diff --git a/3075-h/3075-h.htm b/3075-h/3075-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..bc5d82e --- /dev/null +++ b/3075-h/3075-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,11594 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Return, By Walter de la Mare</title> +<link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> +<style type="text/css"> + +body { margin-left: 20%; + margin-right: 20%; + text-align: justify; } + +h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight: +normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;} + +h1 {font-size: 300%; + margin-top: 0.6em; + margin-bottom: 0.6em; + letter-spacing: 0.12em; + word-spacing: 0.2em; + text-indent: 0em;} +h2 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} +h3 {font-size: 130%; margin-top: 1em;} +h4 {font-size: 120%;} +h5 {font-size: 110%;} + +.no-break {page-break-before: avoid;} /* for epubs */ + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em;} + +hr {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + +p {text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + +p.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: 90%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.letter {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.center {text-align: center; + text-indent: 0em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +div.fig { display:block; + margin:0 auto; + text-align:center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em;} + +a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:hover {color:red} + +</style> +</head> +<body> + +<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Return, by Walter de la Mare</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world 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 <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The Return</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Walter de la Mare</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: December 15, 2000 [eBook #3075]<br /> +[Most recently updated: November 19, 2022]</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Eve Sobol and David Widger</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RETURN ***</div> + +<div class="fig" style="width:55%;"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="[Illustration]" /> +</div> + +<h1>The Return</h1> + +<h2 class="no-break">By Walter de la Mare</h2> + +<hr /> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p class="letter"> +“Look not for roses in Attalus his garden, or wholesome flowers in a venomous +plantation. And since there is scarce any one bad, but some others are the +worse for him; tempt not contagion by proximity and hazard not thyself in the +shadow of corruption.”—SIR THOMAS BROWNE. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<table summary="" style=""> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap01">CHAPTER ONE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap02">CHAPTER TWO</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap03">CHAPTER THREE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap04">CHAPTER FOUR</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap05">CHAPTER FIVE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap06">CHAPTER SIX</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap07">CHAPTER SEVEN</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap08">CHAPTER EIGHT</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap09">CHAPTER NINE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap10">CHAPTER TEN</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap11">CHAPTER ELEVEN</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap12">CHAPTER TWELVE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap13">CHAPTER THIRTEEN</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap14">CHAPTER FOURTEEN</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap15">CHAPTER FIFTEEN</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap16">CHAPTER SIXTEEN</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap17">CHAPTER SEVENTEEN</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap18">CHAPTER EIGHTEEN</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap19">CHAPTER NINETEEN</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap20">CHAPTER TWENTY</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap21">CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap22">CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap23">CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +<hr /> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap01"></a> +CHAPTER ONE</h2> + +<p> +The churchyard in which Arthur Lawford found himself wandering that mild and +golden September afternoon was old, green, and refreshingly still. The silence +in which it lay seemed as keen and mellow as the light—the pale, almost +heatless, sunlight that filled the air. Here and there robins sang across the +stones, elvishly shrill in the quiet of harvest. The only other living creature +there seemed to Lawford to be his own rather fair, not insubstantial, rather +languid self, who at the noise of the birds had raised his head and glanced as +if between content and incredulity across his still and solitary surroundings. +An increasing inclination for such lonely ramblings, together with the feeling +that his continued ill-health had grown a little irksome to his wife, and that +now that he was really better she would be relieved at his absence, had induced +him to wander on from home without much considering where the quiet lanes were +leading him. And in spite of a peculiar melancholy that had welled up into his +mind during these last few days, he had certainly smiled with a faint sense of +the irony of things on lifting his eyes in an unusually depressed moodiness to +find himself looking down on the shadows and peace of Widderstone. +</p> + +<p> +With that anxious irresolution which illness so often brings in its train he +had hesitated for a few minutes before actually entering the graveyard. But +once safely within he had begun to feel extremely loth to think of turning back +again, and this not the less at remembering with a real foreboding that it was +now drawing towards evening, that another day was nearly done. He trailed his +umbrella behind him over the grass-grown paths; staying here and there to read +some time-worn inscription; stooping a little broodingly over the dark green +graves. Not for the first time during the long laborious convalescence that had +followed apparently so slight an indisposition, a fleeting sense almost as if +of an unintelligible remorse had overtaken him, a vague thought that behind all +these past years, hidden as it were from his daily life, lay something not yet +quite reckoned with. How often as a boy had he been rapped into a galvanic +activity out of the deep reveries he used to fall into—those fits of a kind of +fishlike day-dream. How often, and even far beyond boyhood, had he found +himself bent on some distant thought or fleeting vision that the sudden clash +of self-possession had made to seem quite illusory, and yet had left so +strangely haunting. And now the old habit had stirred out of its long sleep, +and, through the gate that Influenza in departing had left ajar, had returned +upon him. +</p> + +<p> +‘But I suppose we are all pretty much the same, if we only knew it,’ he had +consoled himself. ‘We keep our crazy side to ourselves; that’s all. We just go +on for years and years doing and saying whatever happens to come up—and really +keen about it too’—he had glanced up with a kind of challenge in his face at +the squat little belfry—‘and then, without the slightest reason or warning, +down you go, and it all begins to wear thin, and you get wondering what on +earth it all means.’ Memory slipped back for an instant to the life that in so +unusual a fashion seemed to have floated a little aloof. Fortunately he had not +discussed these inward symptoms with his wife. How surprised Sheila would be to +see him loafing in this old, crooked churchyard. How she would lift her dark +eyebrows, with that handsome, indifferent tolerance. He smiled, but a little +confusedly; yet the thought gave even a spice of adventure to the evening’s +ramble. +</p> + +<p> +He loitered on, scarcely thinking at all now, stooping here and there. These +faint listless ideas made no more stir than the sunlight gilding the fading +leaves, the crisp turf underfoot. With a slight effort he stooped even once +again;— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +‘Stranger, a moment pause, and stay;<br/> +In this dim chamber hidden away<br/> +Lies one who once found life as dear<br/> +As now he finds his slumbers here:<br/> +Pray, then, the Judgement but increase<br/> +His deep, everlasting peace!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘But then, do you <i>know</i> you lie at peace?’ Lawford audibly questioned, +gazing at the doggerel. And yet, as his eyes wandered over the blunt green +stone and the rambling crimson-berried brier that had almost encircled it with +its thorns, the echo of that whisper rather jarred. He was, he supposed, rather +a dull creature—at least people seemed to think so—and he seldom felt at ease +even with his own small facetiousness. Besides, just that kind of question was +getting very common. Now that cleverness was the fashion most people were +clever—even perfect fools; and cleverness after all was often only a bore: all +head and no body. He turned languidly to the small cross-shaped stone on the +other side: +</p> + +<p class="center"> +‘Here lies the body of Ann Hard, who died in child-bed.<br/> +Also of James, her infant son.’ +</p> + +<p> +He muttered the words over with a kind of mournful bitterness. ‘That’s just +it—just it; that’s just how it goes!’... He yawned softly; the pathway had come +to an end. Beyond him lay ranker grass, one and another obscurer mounds, an old +scarred oak seat, shadowed by a few everlastingly green cypresses and +coral-fruited yew-trees. And above and beyond all hung a pale blue arch of sky +with a few voyaging clouds like silvered wool, and the calm wide curves of +stubble field and pasture land. He stood with vacant eyes, not in the least +aware how queer a figure he made with his gloves and his umbrella and his hat +among the stained and tottering gravestones. Then, just to linger out his hour, +and half sunken in reverie, he walked slowly over to the few solitary graves +beneath the cypresses. +</p> + +<p> +One only was commemorated with a tombstone, a rather unusual oval-headed stone, +carved at each corner into what might be the heads of angels, or of pagan +dryads, blindly facing each other with worn-out, sightless faces. A low curved +granite canopy arched over the grave, with a crevice so wide between its stones +that Lawford actually bent down and slid in his gloved fingers between them. He +straightened himself with a sigh, and followed with extreme difficulty the +well-nigh, illegible inscription: +</p> + +<p class="center"> +‘Here lie ye Bones of one,<br/> +Nicholas Sabathier, a Stranger to this Parish,<br/> +who fell by his own Hand on ye<br/> +Eve of Ste. Michael and All Angels.<br/> +MDCCXXXIX +</p> + +<p> +Of the date he was a little uncertain. The ‘Hand’ had lost its ‘n’ and ‘d’; and +all the ‘Angels’ rain had erased. He was not quite sure even of the ‘Stranger.’ +There was a great rich ‘S,’ and the twisted tail of a ‘g’; and, whether or not, +Lawford smilingly thought, he is no Stranger now. But how rare and how +memorable a name! French evidently; probably Huguenot. And the Huguenots, he +remembered vaguely, were a rather remarkable ‘crowd.’ He had, he thought, even +played at ‘Huguenots’ once. What was the man’s name? Coligny; yes, of course, +Coligny. ‘And I suppose,’ Lawford continued, muttering to himself, ‘I suppose +this poor beggar was put here out of the way. They might, you know,’ he added +confidentially, raising the ferrule of his umbrella, ‘they might have stuck a +stake through you, and buried you at the crossroads.’ And again, a feeling of +ennui, a faint disgust at his poor little witticism, clouded over his mind. It +was a pity thoughts always ran the easiest way, like water in old ditches. +</p> + +<p> +‘“Here lie ye bones of one, Nicholas Sabathier,”’ he began murmuring +again—‘merely bones, mind you; brains and heart are quite another story. And +it’s pretty certain the fellow had some kind of brains. Besides, poor devil! he +killed himself. That seems to hint at brains... Oh, for goodness’ sake!’ he +cried out; so loud that the sound of his voice alarmed even a robin that had +perched on a twig almost within touch, with glittering eye intent above its dim +red breast on this other and even rarer stranger. +</p> + +<p> +‘I wonder if it is XXXIX.; it might be LXXIX.’ Lawford cast a cautious glance +over his round grey shoulder, then laboriously knelt down beside the stone, and +peeped into the gaping cranny. There he encountered merely the tiny, +pale-green, faintly conspicuous eyes of a large spider, confronting his own. It +was for the moment an alarming, and yet a faintly fascinating experience. The +little almost colourless fires remained so changeless. But still, even when at +last they had actually vanished into the recesses of that quiet habitation, +Lawford did not rise from his knees. An utterly unreasonable feeling of dismay, +a sudden weakness and weariness had come over him. +</p> + +<p> +‘What is the good of it all?’ he asked himself inconsequently—this monotonous, +restless, stupid life to which he was soon to be returning, and for good. He +began to realize how ludicrous a spectacle he must be, kneeling here amid the +weeds and grass beneath the solemn cypresses. ‘Well, you can’t have +everything,’ seemed loosely to express his disquiet. +</p> + +<p> +He stared vacantly at the green and fretted gravestone, dimly aware that his +heart was beating with an unusual effort. He felt ill and weak. He leant his +hand on the stone and lifted himself on to the low wooden seat nearby. He drew +off his glove and thrust his bare hand under his waistcoat, with his mouth a +little ajar, and his eyes fixed on the dark square turret, its bell sharply +defined against the evening sky. +</p> + +<p> +‘Dead!’ a bitter inward voice seemed to break into speech; ‘Dead!’ The viewless +air seemed to be flocking with hidden listeners. The very clearness and the +crystal silence were their ambush. He alone seemed to be the target of cold and +hostile scrutiny. There was not a breath to breathe in this crisp, pale +sunshine. It was all too rare, too thin. The shadows lay like wings +everlastingly folded. The robin that had been his only living witness lifted +its throat, and broke, as if from the uttermost outskirts of reality, into its +shrill, passionless song. Lawford moved heavy eyes from one object to +another—bird—sun-gilded stone—those two small earth-worn faces—his hands—a +stirring in the grass as of some creature labouring to climb up. It was useless +to sit here any longer. He must go back now. Fancies were all very well for a +change, but must be only occasional guests in a world devoted to reality. He +leaned his hand on the dark grey wood, and closed his eyes. The lids presently +unsealed a little, momentarily revealing astonished, aggrieved pupils, and +softly, slowly they again descended.... +</p> + +<p> +The flaming rose that had swiftly surged from the west into the zenith, dyeing +all the churchyard grass a wild and vivid green, and the stooping stones above +it a pure faint purple, waned softly back like a falling fountain into its +basin. In a few minutes, only a faint orange burned in the west, dimly +illuminating with its band of light the huddled figure on his low wood seat, +his right hand still pressed against a faintly beating heart. Dusk gathered; +the first white stars appeared; out of the shadowy fields a nightjar purred. +But there was only the silence of the falling dew among the graves. Down here, +under the ink-black cypresses, the blades of the grass were stooping with cold +drops; and darkness lay like the hem of an enormous cloak, whose jewels above +the breast of its wearer might be in the unfathomable clearness the glittering +constellations.... +</p> + +<p> +In his small cage of darkness Lawford shuddered and raised a furtive head. He +stood up and peered eagerly and strangely from side to side. He stayed quite +still, listening as raptly as some wandering night-beast to the indiscriminate +stir and echoings of the darkness. He cocked his head above his shoulder and +listened again, then turned upon the soundless grass towards the hill. He felt +not the faintest astonishment or strangeness in his solitude here; only a +little chilled, and physically uneasy; and yet in this vast darkness a faint +spiritual exaltation seemed to hover. +</p> + +<p> +He hastened up the narrow path, walking with knees a little bent, like an old +labourer who has lived a life of stooping, and came out into the dry and dusty +lane. One moment his instinct hesitated as to which turn to take—only a moment; +he was soon walking swiftly, almost trotting, downhill with this vivid +exaltation in the huge dark night in his heart, and Sheila merely a little +angry Titianesque cloud on a scarcely perceptible horizon. He had no notion of +the time; the golden hands of his watch were indiscernible in the gloom. But +presently, as he passed by, he pressed his face close to the cold glass of a +little shop-window, and pierced that out by an old Swiss cuckoo-clock. He would +if he hurried just be home before dinner. +</p> + +<p> +He broke into a slow, steady trot, gaining speed as he ran on, vaguely elated +to find how well his breath was serving him. An odd smile darkened his face at +remembrance of the thoughts he had been thinking. There could be little amiss +with the heart of a man who could shamble along like this, taking even +pleasure, an increasing pleasure in this long, wolf-like stride. He turned +round occasionally to look into the face of some fellow-wayfarer whom he had +overtaken, for he felt not only this unusual animation, this peculiar zest, but +that, like a boy on some secret errand, he had slightly disguised his very +presence, was going masked, as it were. Even his clothes seemed to have +connived at this queer illusion. No tailor had for these ten years allowed him +so much latitude. He cautiously at last opened his garden gate and with +soundless agility mounted the six stone steps, his latch-key ready in his +gloveless hand, and softly let himself into the house. +</p> + +<p> +Sheila was out, it seemed, for the maid had forgotten to light the lamp. +Without pausing to take off his greatcoat, he hung up his hat, ran nimbly +upstairs, and knocked with a light knuckle on his bedroom door. It was closed, +but no answer came. He opened it, shut it, locked it, and sat down on the +bedside for a moment, in the darkness, so that he could scarcely hear any other +sound, as he sat erect and still, like some night animal, wary of danger, +attentively alert. Then he rose from the bed, threw off his coat, which was +clammy with dew, and lit a candle on the dressing-table. +</p> + +<p> +Its narrow flame lengthened, drooped, brightened, gleamed clearly. He glanced +around him, unusually contented—at the ruddiness of the low fire, the brass +bedstead, the warm red curtains, the soft silveriness here and there. It seemed +as if a heavy and dull dream had withdrawn out of his mind. He would go again +some day, and sit on the little hard seat beside the crooked tombstone of the +friendless old Huguenot. He opened a drawer, took out his razors, and, faintly +whistling, returned to the table and lit a second candle. And still with this +strange heightened sense of life stirring in his mind, he drew his hand gently +over his chin and looked unto the glass. +</p> + +<p> +For an instant he stood head to foot icily still, without the least feeling, or +thought, or stir—staring into the looking-glass. Then an inconceivable drumming +beat on his ear. A warm surge, like the onset of a wave, broke in him, flooding +neck, face, forehead, even his hands with colour. He caught himself up and +wheeled deliberately and completely round, his eyes darting to and fro, +suddenly to fix themselves in a prolonged stare, while he took a deep breath, +caught back his self-possession and paused. Then he turned and once more +confronted the changed strange face in the glass. +</p> + +<p> +Without a sound he drew up a chair and sat down, just as he was, frigid and +appalled, at the foot of the bed. To sit like this, with a kind of incredibly +swift torrent of consciousness, bearing echoes and images like straws and +bubbles on its surface, could not be called thinking. Some stealthy hand had +thrust open the sluice of memory. And words, voices, faces of mockery streamed +through without connection, tendency, or sense. His hands hung between his +knees, a deep and settled frown darkened the features stooping out of the +direct rays of the light, and his eyes wandered like busy and inquisitive, but +stupid, animals over the floor. +</p> + +<p> +If, in that flood of unintelligible thoughts, anything clearly recurred at all, +it was the memory of Sheila. He saw her face, lit, transfigured, distorted, +stricken, appealing, horrified. His lids narrowed; a vague terror and horror +mastered him. He hid his eyes in his hands and cried without sound, without +tears, without hope, like a desolate child. He ceased crying; and sat without +stirring. And it seemed after an age of vacancy and meaninglessness he heard a +door shut downstairs, a distant voice, and then the rustle of some one slowly +ascending the stairs. Some one turned the handle; in vain; tapped. ‘Is that +you, Arthur?’ +</p> + +<p> +For an instant Lawford paused, then like a child listening for an echo, +answered, ‘Yes, Sheila.’ And a sigh broke from him; his voice, except for a +little huskiness, was singularly unchanged. +</p> + +<p> +‘May I come in?’ Lawford stood softly up and glanced once more into the glass. +His lips set tight, and a slight frown settled between the long, narrow, +intensely dark eyes. +</p> + +<p> +‘Just one moment, Sheila,’ he answered slowly, ‘just one moment.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘How long will you be?’ +</p> + +<p> +He stood erect and raised his voice, gazing the while impassively into the +glass. +</p> + +<p> +‘It’s no use,’ he began, as if repeating a lesson, ‘it’s no use your asking me, +Sheila. Please give me a moment, a...I am not quite myself, dear,’ he added +quite gravely. +</p> + +<p> +The faintest hint of vexation was in the answer. +</p> + +<p> +‘What is the matter? Can’t I help? It’s so very absurd—’ +</p> + +<p> +‘What is absurd?’ he asked dully. +</p> + +<p> +‘Why, standing like this outside my own bedroom door. Are you ill? I will send +for Dr. Simon.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Please, Sheila, do nothing of the kind. I am not ill. I merely want a little +time to think in.’ There was again a brief pause, and then a slight rattling at +the handle. +</p> + +<p> +‘Arthur, I insist on knowing at once what’s wrong; this does not sound a bit +like yourself. It is not even quite like your own voice.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘It is myself,’ he replied stubbornly, staring fixedly into the glass. You must +give me a few moments, Sheila. Something has happened. My face. Come back in an +hour.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Don’t be absurd; it’s simply wicked to talk like that. How do I know what you +are doing? As if I can leave you for an hour in uncertainty! Your face! If you +don’t open at once I shall believe there’s something seriously wrong: I shall +send Ada for assistance.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘If you do that, Sheila, it will be disastrous. I cannot answer for the con—. +Go quietly downstairs. Say I am unwell; don’t wait dinner for me; come back in +an hour; oh, half an hour!’ +</p> + +<p> +The answer broke out angrily. ‘You must be mad, beside yourself, to ask such a +thing. I shall wait in the next room until you call.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Wait where you please,’ Lawford replied, ‘but tell them downstairs.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Then if I tell them to wait until half-past eight, you will come down? You say +you are not ill: the dinner will be ruined. It’s absurd.’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford made no answer. He listened a while, then he deliberately sat down once +more to try to think. Like a squirrel in a cage his mind seemed to be +aimlessly, unceasingly astir. ‘What is it really? What is it really?—really?’ +He sat there and it seemed to him his body was transparent as glass. It seemed +he had no body at all—only the memory of an hallucinatory reflection in the +glass, and this inward voice crying, arguing, questioning, threatening out of +the silence—‘What is it really—really—<i>really</i>?’ And at last, cold, +wearied out, he rose once more and leaned between the two long candle-flames, +and stared on—on—on, into the glass. +</p> + +<p> +He gave that long, dark face that had been foisted on him tricks to do—lift an +eyebrow, frown. There was scarcely any perceptible pause between the wish and +its performance. He found to his discomfiture that the face answered +instantaneously to the slightest emotion, even to his fainter secondary +thoughts; as if these unfamiliar features were not entirely within control. He +could not, in fact, without the glass before him, tell precisely what that face +<i>was</i> expressing. He was still, it seemed, keenly sane. That he would +discover for certain when Sheila returned. Terror, rage, horror had fallen +back. If only he felt ill, or was in pain: he would have rejoiced at it. He was +simply caught in some unheard-of snare—caught, how? when? where? by whom? +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap02"></a> +CHAPTER TWO</h2> + +<p> +But the coolness and deliberation of his scrutiny, had to a certain extent +calmed Lawford’s mind and given him confidence. Hitherto he had met the little +difficulties of life only to vanquish them with ease and applause. Now he was +standing face to face with the unknown. He burst out laughing, into a long, +low, helpless laughter. Then he arose and began to walk softly, swiftly, to and +fro across the room—from wall to wall seven paces, and at the fourth, that +awful, unseen, brightly-lit profile passed as swiftly over the tranquil surface +of the looking-glass. The power of concentration was gone again. He simply +paced on mechanically, listening to a Babel of questions, a conflicting medley +of answers. But above all the confusion and turmoil of his brain, as a +boatswain’s whistle rises above a storm, so sounded that same infinitesimal +voice, incessantly repeating another question now, ‘What are you going to do? +What are you going to do?’ +</p> + +<p> +And in the midst of this confusion, out of the infinite, as it were, came +another sharp tap at the door, and all within sank to utter stillness again. +</p> + +<p> +‘It’s nearly half-past eight, Arthur; I can’t wait any longer.’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford cast a last fleeting look into the glass, turned, and confronted the +closed door. ‘Very well, Sheila, you shall <i>not</i> wait any longer.’ He +crossed over to the door, and suddenly a swift crafty idea flashed into his +mind. +</p> + +<p> +He tapped on the panel. ‘Sheila,’ he said softly, ‘I want you first, before you +come in, to get me something out of my old writing-desk in the smoking-room. +Here is the key.’ He pushed a tiny key—from off the ring he carried—beneath the +door. ‘In the third little drawer from the top, on the left side, is a letter; +please don’t say anything now. It is the letter you wrote me, you will +remember, after I had asked you to marry me. You scribbled in the corner under +your signature the initials “Y.S.O.A.”—do you remember? They meant, You Silly +Old Arthur!—do you remember? Will you please get that letter at once?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Arthur,’ answered the voice from without, empty of all expression, ‘what does +all this mean, this mystery, this hopeless nonsense about a silly letter? What +has happened? Is this a miserable form of persecution? Are you mad?—I refuse to +get the letter.’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford stooped, black and angular, against the door. ‘I am not mad. Oh, I am +in the deadliest earnest, Sheila. You <i>must</i> get the letter, if only for +your own peace of mind.’ He heard his wife hesitate as she turned. He heard a +sob. And once more he waited. +</p> + +<p> +‘I have brought the letter,’ came the low toneless voice again. +</p> + +<p> +‘Have you opened it?’ +</p> + +<p> +There was a rustle of paper. ‘Are the letters there underlined three +times—“Y.S.O.A.”?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘The letters are there.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘And the date of the month is underneath, “April 3rd.” No one else in the whole +world, living or dead, could know of this but ourselves, Sheila?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Will you please open the door?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘No one?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I suppose not—no one.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Then come in.’ He unlocked the door and opened it. A dark, rather handsome +woman, with sleek hair, in a silk dress of a dark rich colour entered. Lawford +closed the door. But his face was in shadow. He had still a moment’s respite. +</p> + +<p> +‘I need not ask you to be patient,’ he began quickly; ‘if I could possibly have +spared you—if there had been anybody in the world to go to... I am in horrible, +horrible trouble, Sheila. It is inconceivable. I said I was sane: so I am, but +the fact is—I went out for a walk; it was rather stupid, perhaps, so soon: and +I think I was taken ill, or something—my heart. A kind of fit, a nervous fit. +Possibly I am a little unstrung, and it’s all, it’s mainly fancy: but I think, +I can’t help thinking it has a little distorted—changed my face; everything, +Sheila; except, of course, myself. Would you mind looking?’ He walked slowly +and with face averted towards the dressing-table. +</p> + +<p> +‘Simply a nervous—to make such a fuss, to scare!...’ began his wife, following +him. +</p> + +<p> +Without a word he took up the two old china candlesticks, and held them, one in +each lank-fingered hand, before his face, and turned. +</p> + +<p> +Lawford could see his wife—every tint and curve and line as distinctly as she +could see him. Her cheeks never had much colour; now her whole face visibly +darkened, from pallor to a dusky leaden grey, as she gazed. It was not an +illusion then; not a miserable hallucination. The unbelievable, the +inconceivable, had happened. He replaced the candles with trembling fingers and +sat down. +</p> + +<p> +‘Well,’ he said, ‘what is it really; what is it really, Sheila? What on earth +are we to do?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Is the door locked?’ she whispered. He nodded. With eyes fixed stirlessly on +his face, Sheila unsteadily seated herself, a little out of the candlelight, in +the shadow. Lawford rose and put the key of the door on his wife’s little +rose-wood prayer-desk at her elbow, and deliberately sat down again. +</p> + +<p> +‘You said “a fit”—where?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I suppose—is—is it very different—hopeless? You will understand my being... O +Sheila, what am I to do?’ His wife sat perfectly still, watching him with +unflinching attention. +</p> + +<p> +‘You gave me to understand—“a nervous fit”; where?’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford took a deep breath, and quietly faced her again. ‘In the old +churchyard, Widderstone; I was looking at—at the gravestones.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘A fit; in the old churchyard, Widderstone—you were “looking at the +gravestones”?’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford shut his mouth. ‘I suppose so—a fit,’ he said presently. ‘My heart went +a little queer, and I sat down and fell into a kind of doze—a stupor, I +suppose. I don’t remember anything more. And then I woke; like this.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘How do you know?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘How do I know what?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘“Like that”?’ +</p> + +<p> +He turned slowly towards the looking-glass. ‘Why, here I am!’ +</p> + +<p> +She gazed at him steadily; and a hard, incredulous, almost cunning glint came +into her wide blue eyes. She took up the key carelessly, glanced at it; glanced +at him. ‘It has made me—I mean the first shock, you know—it has made me a +little faint.’ She walked slowly, deliberately to the door, and unlocked it. +‘I’ll get a little sal volatile.’ She softly drew out the key, and without once +removing her eyes from his face, opened the door and pushed the key noiselessly +in on the other side. ‘Please stay there; I won’t be a minute.’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford’s face smiled—a rather desperate, yet for all that a patient, resolute +smile. ‘Oh yes, of course,’ he said, almost to himself, ‘I had not foreseen—at +least—you must do precisely what you please, Sheila. You were going to lock me +in. You will, however, before taking any final step, please think over what it +will entail. I did not think you would, after such proof, in this awful +trouble—I did not think you would simply disbelieve me, Sheila. Who else is +there to help me? You have the letter in your hand. Isn’t that sufficient +proof? It was overwhelming proof to me. And even I doubted too; doubted myself. +But never mind; why I should have dreamed you would believe me; or taken this +awful thing differently, I don’t know. It’s rather awful to have to go on +alone. But there, think it over. I shall not stir until I hear the voices. And +then: honestly, Sheila, I couldn’t face quite that. I’d sooner give up +altogether. Any proof you can think of—I will... O God, I cannot bear it!’ He +covered his face with his hands; but in a moment looked up, unmoved once more. +‘Why, for that matter,’ he added slowly, and, as it were, with infinite pains, +a faint thin smile again stealing into his face, ‘I think,’ he turned wearily +to the glass, ‘I think, it’s almost an improvement!’ +</p> + +<p> +Something deep in those dark clear pupils, out of that lean adventurous face, +gleamed back at him, the distant flash of a heliograph, as it were, height to +height, flashing ‘Courage!’ He shuddered, and shut his eyes. ‘But I would +really rather,’ he added in a quiet childlike way, ‘I would really rather, +Sheila, you left me alone now.’ +</p> + +<p> +His wife stood irresolute. ‘I understand you to explain,’ she said, ‘that you +went out of this house, just your usual self, this afternoon, for a walk; that +for some reason you went to Widderstone—“to read the tombstones,” that you had +a heart attack, or, as you said at first, a fit, that you fell into a stupor, +and came home like—like this. Am I likely to believe all that? Am I likely to +believe such a story as that? Whoever you are, whoever you may be, is it +likely? I am not in the least afraid. I thought at first it was some silly +practical joke. I thought that at first.’ She paused, but no answer came. +‘Well, I suppose in a civilised country there is a remedy even for a joke as +wicked as that.’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford listened patiently. ‘She is pretending; she is trying me; she is +feeling her way,’ he kept repeating to himself. ‘She knows I <i>am</i> I, but +hasn’t the courage... Let her talk!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I shall leave the door open,’ Sheila continued. ‘I am not, as you no doubt +very naturally assumed—I am not going to do anything either senseless or +heedless. I am merely going to ask your brother Cecil to come in, if he is at +home, and if not, no doubt our old friend Mr. Montgomery would—would help us.’ +Her scrutiny was still and concentrated, like that of a cat above a mouse’s +hole. +</p> + +<p> +Lawford sat crouched together in the candle-light. ‘By all means, Sheila,’ he +said slowly choosing his words, ‘if you think poor old Cecil, who next January +will have been three years in his grave, will be of any use in our difficulty. +Who Mr. Montgomery is...’ His voice dropped in utter weariness. ‘You did it +very well, my dear,’ he added softly. +</p> + +<p> +Sheila gently closed the door and sat down on the bed. He heard her softly +crying, he heard the bed shaken with her sobs. But a slow glance towards the +steady candle-flames restrained him. He let her cry on alone. When she had +become a little more composed he stood up. ‘You have had no dinner,’ he managed +to blurt out at last, ‘you will be faint. It’s useless to talk, even to think, +any more to-night. Leave me to myself for a while. Don’t look at me any more. +Perhaps I can sleep: perhaps if I sleep it will come right again. When the +servants are gone up, I will come down. Just let me have some—some medical +book, or other; and some more candles. Don’t think, Sheila; don’t even think!’ +</p> + +<p> +Sheila paid him no attention for a while. ‘You tell me not to think,’ she +began, in a low, almost listless voice; ‘why—I wonder I am in my right mind. +And “eat”! How can you have the heartlessness to suggest it? You don’t seem in +the least to <i>realize</i> what you say. You seem to have lost all—all +consciousness. I quite agree, it is useless for me to burden you with my +company while you are in your present condition of mind. But you will at least +promise me that you won’t take any further steps in this awful business.’ She +could not, try as she would, bring herself again to look at him. She rose +softly, paused a moment with sidelong eyes, then turned deliberately towards +the door, ‘What, what have I done to deserve all this?’ +</p> + +<p> +From behind her that voice, so extraordinarily like—and yet in some vague +fashion more arresting, more resonant than her husband’s, broke incredibly out +once more. ‘You will please leave the key, Sheila. I am ill, but I am not yet +in the padded room. And please understand, I take no further steps in “this +awful business” until I hear a strange voice in the house.’ Sheila paused, but +the quiet voice rang in her ear, desperately yet convincingly. She took the key +out of the lock, placed it on the bed, and with a sigh, that was not quite +without a hint of relief in its misery, she furtively extinguished the +gas-light on the landing and rustled downstairs. +</p> + +<p> +She speedily returned. ‘I have brought the book.’ she said hastily. ‘I could +only find the one volume. I have said you have taken a fresh chill. No one will +disturb you.’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford took the book without a word. And once more, with eyes stonily averted, +his wife left him to his own company and that of the face in the glass. +</p> + +<p> +When completely deserted, Lawford with fumbling fingers opened Quain’s +‘Dictionary of Medicine.’ He had never had much curiosity, and had always hated +what he disbelieved, but none the less he had heard occasionally of absurd and +questionable experiments. He remembered even to have glanced over reports of +cases in the newspapers concerning disappearances, loss of memory, dual +personality. Cranks... Oh yes, he thought now, with a sense of cold humiliating +relief, there <i>had</i> been such cases as his before. They were no doubt +curable. They must be comparatively common in America—that land of jangled +nerves. Possibly bromide, rest, a battery. But Quain, it seemed, shared his +prejudices, at least in this edition, or had hidden away all such apocryphal +matter beneath technical terms, where no sensible man could find it, ‘Besides,’ +he muttered angrily, ‘what’s the good of your one volume?’ He flung it down and +strode to the bed, and rang the bell. Then suddenly recollecting himself, he +paused and listened. There came a tap on the door. ‘Is that you, Sheila?’ he +called, doubtfully. +</p> + +<p> +‘No, sir, it’s me,’ came the answer. +</p> + +<p> +‘Oh, don’t trouble; I only wanted to speak to your mistress. It’s all right.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Mrs. Lawford has gone out, sir,’ replied the voice. +</p> + +<p> +‘Gone out?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes, sir; she told me not to mention it; but I suppose as you asked—’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Oh, that’s all right; never mind; I didn’t ring.’ He stood with face uplifted, +thinking. +</p> + +<p> +‘Can I do anything, sir?’ came the faint, nervous question after a long pause. +</p> + +<p> +‘One moment, Ada,’ he called in a loud voice. He took out his pocket-book, sat +down, and scribbled a little note. He hardly noticed how changed his +handwriting was—the clear round letters crabbed and irregular. +</p> + +<p> +‘Are you there, Ada?’ he called. ‘I am slipping a note beneath the door; just +draw back the mat; that’s it. Take it at once, please, to Mr. Critchett’s, and +be sure to wait for an answer. Then come back direct to me, up here. I don’t +think, Ada, your mistress believes much in Critchett; but I have fully +explained what I want. He has made me up many prescriptions. Explain that to +his assistant if he is not there. Go at once, and you will be back before she +is. I should be so very much obliged, tell him. “Mr Arthur Lawford.”’ +</p> + +<p> +The minutes slowly drifted by. He sat quite still in the clear untroubled +light, waiting in the silence of the empty house. And for the first time he was +confronted with the cold incredible horror of his ordeal. Who would believe, +who could believe, that behind this strange and awful, yet how simple mask, lay +himself? What test; what heaped-up evidence of identity would break it down? It +was all a loathsome ignominy. It was utterly absurd. It was— +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly, with a kind of ape-like cunning, he deliberately raised a long lean +forefinger and pointed it at the shadowy crystal of the looking-glass. Perhaps +he was dead, was really and indeed changed in body, was fated really and indeed +to change in soul, into That. ‘It’s that beastly voice again,’ Lawford cried +out loud, looking vacantly at his upstretched finger. And then, hand and arm, +not too willingly, as it were, obeyed; relaxed and fell to his side. ‘You must +keep a tight hold, old man,’ he muttered to himself. ‘Once, once you lose +yourself—the least symptom of that—the least symptom, and it’s all up!’ And the +fools, the heartless, preposterous fools had brought him one volume! +</p> + +<p> +When on earth was Ada coming back? She was lagging on purpose. She was in the +conspiracy too. Oh, it should be a lesson to Sheila! Oh, if only daylight would +come! ‘What are you going to do—to do—to DO?’ He rose once more and paced his +silent cage. To and fro, thinking no more; just using his eyes, compelling them +to wander from picture to picture, bedpost to bedpost; now counting aloud his +footsteps; now humming; only, only to keep himself from thinking. At last he +took out a drawer and actually began arranging its medley of contents; ties, +letters, studs, concert and theatre programmes—all higgledy-piggledy. And in +the midst of this childish strategem he heard a faint sound, as of heavy water +trickling from a height. He turned. A thief was in one of the candles. It was +guttering out. He would be left in darkness. He turned hastily without a +moment’s heed, to call for light, flung the door open and full in the flare of +a lamp, illuminating her pale forehead and astonished face beneath her black +straw hat, stood face to face with Ada. +</p> + +<p> +With one swift dexterous movement he drew the door to after him, looking +straight into her almost colourless steady eyes. ‘Ah,’ he said instantly, in a +high faint voice, ‘the powder, thank you; yes, Mr Lawford’s powder; thank you, +thank you. He must be kept absolutely quiet—absolutely. Mrs Lawford is +following. Please tell her that I am here, when she returns. Mr Critchett was +in, then? Thank you. Extreme, extreme silence, please.’ Again that knotted, +melodramatic finger raised itself on high; and within that lean, cadaverous +body the soul of its lodger quailed at this spectral boldness. But it was +triumphant. The maid at once left him and went downstairs. He heard faint +voices in muffled consultation. And in a moment Sheila’s silks rustled once +more on the staircase. Lawford put down the lamp, and watched her deliberately +close the door. +</p> + +<p> +‘What does this mean?’ she began swiftly, ‘I understand that—Ada tells me a +stranger is here; giving orders, directions. Who is he? where is he? You bound +yourself on your solemn promise not to stir till I returned. You... How can I, +how can we get decently through this horrible business if you are so wretchedly +indiscreet? You sent Ada to the chemist’s. What for? What for? I say.’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford watched his wife with an almost extraneous interest. She was certainly +extremely interesting from that point of view, that very novel point of view. +‘It’s quite useless,’ he said, ‘to get in the least nervous or hysterical. I +don’t care for the darkness just now. That was all. Tell the girl I am a +strange doctor—Dr Simon’s new partner. You are clever at conventionalities, +Sheila. Invent! I said our patient must be kept quiet—I really think he must. +That is all, so far as Ada is concerned.... What on earth else <i>are</i> we to +say?’ he broke out. ‘That, for the present to <i>everybody</i>, is our only +possible story. It will give us what we must have—time. And next—where is the +second volume of Quain? I want that. And next—why have you broken faith with +me?’ Mrs Lawford sat down. This sudden and baffling outburst had stupefied her. +</p> + +<p> +‘I can’t, I can’t make head or tail of what you say. And as for having broken +faith, as you call it, would any wife, would any sane woman face what you have +brought on us, a situation like this, without seeking advice and help? Mr +Bethany will be perfectly discreet—if he thinks discretion desirable. He is the +only available friend we have close enough to ask at once. And things of this +kind are, I suppose, if anybody’s concern, his. It’s certain to leak out. +Everybody will hear of it. Don’t flatter yourself you are going to hush up a +thing like this for long. You can’t keep <i>living</i> skeletons in a cupboard. +You think only of yourself, only of your own misfortune. But who’s to know, +pray, that you really are my husband—if you are? The sooner I get the vicar on +my side the better for us both. Who in the whole of the parish—I ask you—and +you must have the sense left to see that—who will believe that a respectable +man, a gentleman, a Churchman, would deliberately go out to seek an afternoon’s +amusement in a poky little country churchyard? Why, apart from everything else, +<i>that</i> was absolutely mad to start with. Can you really wonder at the +result?’ +</p> + +<p> +Probably because she still steadfastly refused to look at him, her memory kept +losing its hold on the appalling fact facing them. She realised fully only that +she was in a great, unwarrantable, and insurmountable difficulty, but until she +actually lifted her eyes for a moment she had not fully realised what that +difficulty was. She got up with a sudden and horrible nausea. ‘One moment,’ she +said, ‘I will see if the servants have gone to bed.’ +</p> + +<p> +That long saturnine face, behind which Lawford lay in a dull and desperate +ambush, smiled. Something partaking of its clay, some reflex ghost of its +rather remarkable features, was even a little amused at Sheila. +</p> + +<p> +She returned in a moment, and stood in profile in the doorway. ‘Will you come +down?’ she remarked distantly. +</p> + +<p> +‘One moment, Sheila,’ Lawford began miserably. ‘Before we take this irrevocable +step, a step I implore you to postpone awhile—for what comes, I suppose, may +go—what precisely have you told the vicar? I must in fairness know that.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘In fairness,’ she began ironically, and suddenly broke off. Her husband had +turned the flame of the lamp low down in the vacant room behind them; the +corridor was lit obscurely by the chandelier far down in the hall below. A +faint, inexplicable dread fell softly and coldly on her heart. ‘Have you no +trust in me?’ she murmured a little bitterly. ‘I have simply told him the +truth.’ +</p> + +<p> +They softly descended the stairs; she first, the dark figure following close +behind her. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap03"></a> +CHAPTER THREE</h2> + +<p> +Mr Bethany sat awaiting them in the dining-room, a large, heavily-furnished +room with a great benign looking-glass on the mantelpiece, a marble clock, and +with rich old damask curtains. Fleecy silver hair was all that was visible of +their visitor when they entered. But Mr Bethany rose out of his chair when he +heard them, and with a little jerk, turned sharply round. Thus it was that the +gold-spectacled vicar and Lawford first confronted each other, the one brightly +illuminated, the other framed in the gloom of the doorway. Mr Bethany’s first +scrutiny was timid and courteous, but beneath it he tried to be keen, and +himself hastened round the table almost at a trot, to obtain, as delicately as +possible, a closer view. But Lawford, having shut the door behind him, had gone +straight to the fire and seated himself, leaning his face in his hands. Mr +Bethany smiled faintly, waved his hand almost as if in blessing, but certainly +in peace, and tapped Mrs Lawford into the chair upon the other side. But he +himself remained standing. +</p> + +<p> +‘Mrs Lawford has, I declare, been telling family secrets,’ he began, and +paused, peering. ‘But there, you will forgive an old friend’s intrusion—this +little confidence about a change, my dear fellow—about a ramble and a change?’ +He sat down, put up his kind little puckered face and peered again at Lawford, +and then very hastily at his wife. But all her attention was centred on the +bowed figure opposite to her. Lawford responded to this cautious advance +without raising his head. +</p> + +<p> +‘You do not wish me to repeat all that my wife tells me she has told you?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Dear me, no,’ said Mr Bethany cheerfully, ‘I wish nothing, nothing, old +friend. You must not burden yourself with me. If I may be of any help, here I +am.... Oh, no, no....’ he paused, with blinking eyes, but wits still shrewd and +alert. Why doesn’t the man raise his head? he thought. A mere domestic dispute! +</p> + +<p> +‘I thought,’ he went on ruminatingly, ‘I thought on Tuesday, yes, on Tuesday, +that you weren’t looking quite the thing. Indeed, I remarked on it. But now, I +understand from Mrs Lawford that the malady has taken a graver turn—eh, +Lawford, an heretical turn? I hear you have been wandering from the true fold.’ +Mr Bethany leaned forward with what might be described as a very large smile in +a very small compass. ‘And that, of course, entailed instant retribution.’ He +broke off solemnly. ‘I know Widderstone churchyard well; a most verdant and +beautiful spot. The late rector, a Mr Strickland, was a very old friend of +mine. And his wife, dear good Alicia, used to set out her babies, in the +morning, to sleep and to play there, twenty, dear me, perhaps twenty-five years +ago. But I did not know, my dear Lawford, that you—’ and suddenly, without an +instant’s warning, something seemed to shout at him, ‘Look, look! He is looking +at you!’ He stopped, faltered, and a slight warmth came into his face. ‘And and +you were taken ill there?’ His voice had fallen flat and faint. +</p> + +<p> +‘I fell asleep—or something of that sort,’ came the stubborn reply. +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes,’ said Mr Bethany, brightly, ‘so your wife was saying. “Fell asleep,” so +have I too—scores of times’; he beamed, with beads of sweat glistening on his +forehead. ‘And then? I’m not, I’m not persisting?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Then I woke; refreshed, I think, as it seemed—I felt much better and came +home.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Ah, yes,’ said his visitor. And after that there was a long, brightly lit, +intense pause; at the end of which Lawford raised his face and again looked +firmly at his friend. +</p> + +<p> +Mr Bethany was now a shrunken old man; he sat perfectly still, his head craned +a little forward, and his veined hands clutching his bent, spare knees. +</p> + +<p> +There wasn’t the least sign of devilry, or out-facingness, or insolence in that +lean shadowy steady head; and yet he himself was compelled to sidle his glance +away, so much the face shook him. He closed his eyes, too, as a cat does after +exchanging too direct a scrutiny with human eyes. He put out towards, and +withdrew, a groping hand from Mrs Lawford. +</p> + +<p> +‘Is it,’ came a voice from somewhere, ‘is it a great change, sir? I thought +perhaps I may have exaggerated—candle-light, you know.’ +</p> + +<p> +Mr Bethany remained still and silent, striving to entertain one thought at a +time. His lips moved as if he were talking to himself. And again it was +Lawford’s faltering voice that broke the silence. ‘You see,’ he said, ‘I have +never... no fit, or anything of that kind before. I remember on Tuesday... oh +yes, quite well. I did feel seedy, very. And we talked, didn’t we?—Harvest +Festival, Mrs Wine’s flowers, the new offertory-bags, and all that. For God’s +sake, Vicar, it is not as bad as—as they make out?’ +</p> + +<p> +Mr Bethany woke with a start. He leaned forward, and stretched out a long black +wrinkled sleeve, just managing to reach far enough to tap Lawford’s knee. +‘Don’t worry, don’t worry,’ he said soothingly. ‘We believe, we believe.’ +</p> + +<p> +It was, none the less, a sheer act of faith. He took off his spectacles and +took out his handkerchief. ‘What we must do, eh, my dear,’ he half turned to +Mrs Lawford, ‘what we must do is to consult, yes, consult together. And +later—we must have advice—medical advice; unless, as I very much suspect, it is +merely a little quite temporary physical aberration. Science, I am told, is +making great strides, experimenting, groping after things which no sane man has +ever dreamed of before—without being burned alive for it. What’s in a name? +Nerves, especially, Lawford.’ +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Lawford sat perfectly still, absorbedly listening, turning her face first +this way, then that, to each speaker in turn. ‘That is what I thought,’ she +said, and cast one fleeting glance across at the fireplace, ‘but—’ +</p> + +<p> +The little old gentleman turned sharply with half-blind eyes, and lips tight +shut. ‘I think,’ he said, with a hind of austere humour, ‘I think, do you know, +I see no “but.”’ He paused as if to catch the echo and added, ‘It’s our only +course.’ He continued to polish round and round his glasses. Mrs Lawford rather +magnificently rose. +</p> + +<p> +‘Perhaps if I were to leave you together awhile? I shall not be far off. It +is,’ she explained, as if into a huge vacuum, ‘it is a terrible visitation.’ +She moved gravely round the table and very softly and firmly closed the door +after her. +</p> + +<p> +Lawford took a deep breath. ‘Of course,’ he said, ‘you realise my wife does not +believe me. She thinks,’ he explained naively, as if to himself, ‘she thinks I +am an imposter. Goodness knows what she does think. I can’t think much +myself—for long!’ +</p> + +<p> +The vicar rubbed busily on. ‘I have found, Lawford,’ he said smoothly, ‘that in +all real difficulties the only feasible plan is—is to face the main issue. The +others right themselves. Now, to take a plunge into your generosity. You have +let me in far enough to make it impossible for me to get out—may I hear then +exactly the whole story? All that I know now, so far as I could gather from +your wife, poor soul, is of course inconceivable: that you went out one man and +came home another. You will understand, my dear man, I am speaking, as it were, +by rote. God has mercifully ordered that the human brain works slowly; first +the blow, hours afterwards the bruise. Oh, dear me, that man Hume—“on +miracles”—positively amazing! So that too, please, you will be quite clear +about. <i lang="la">Credo</i>—not <i lang="la">quia impossible est</i>, but +because you, Lawford, have told me. Now then, if it won’t be too wearisome to +you, the whole story.’ He sat, lean and erect in his big chair, a hand resting +loosely on each knee, in one spectacles, in the other a dangling pocket +handkerchief. And the dark, sallow, aquiline, formidable figure, with its oddly +changing voice, re-told the whole story from the beginning. +</p> + +<p> +‘You were aware then of nothing different, I understand, until you actually +looked into the glass?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Only vaguely. I mean that after waking I felt much better, more alert. And my +thoughts—’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Ah, yes, your thoughts?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I hardly know—oh, clear as if I had had a real long rest. It was just like +being a boy again. Influenza dispirits one so.’ +</p> + +<p> +Mr Bethany gazed without stirring. ‘And yet, you know,’ he said, ‘I can hardly +believe, I mean conceive, how—You have been taking no drugs, no quackery, +Lawford?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I never dose myself,’ said Lawford, with sombre pride. +</p> + +<p> +‘God bless me, that’s Lawford to the echo,’ thought his visitor. ‘And before—?’ +he went on gently; ‘I really cannot conceive, you see, how a mere fit could... +Before you sat down you were quite alone?’ He stuck out his head. ‘There was +nobody with you?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘With me? Oh no,’ came the soft answer. +</p> + +<p> +‘What had you been thinking of? In these days of faith-cures, and hypnotism, +and telepathy, and subliminalities—why, the simple old world grows very +confusing. But rarely, very rarely novel. You were thinking, you say; do you +remember, perhaps, just the drift?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Well,’ began Lawford ruminatingly, ‘there was something curious even then, +perhaps. I remember, for instance, I knelt down to read an old tombstone. There +was a little seat—no back. And an epitaph. The sun was just setting; some +French name. And there was a long jagged crack in the stone, like the black +line you know one sees after lightning, I mean it’s as clear as that even now, +in memory. Oh yes, I remember. And then, I suppose, came the sleep—stupid, +sluggish: and then; well, here I am.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘You are absolutely certain, then,’ persisted Mr Bethany almost querulously, +‘there was no living creature near you? Bless me, Lawford, I see no unkindness +in believing what the Bible itself relates. There <i>are</i> powers +supernatural. Saul, and so on. We are all convinced of that. No one?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I remember distinctly,’ replied Lawford, in a calm, stubborn voice, ‘I looked +up all around me, while I was kneeling there, and there wasn’t a soul to be +seen. Because, you see, it even then occurred to me that it would have looked +rather queer—my wandering about like that, I mean. Facing me there were some +cypress-trees, and beyond, a low sunken fence, and then, just open country. Up +above there were the gravestones toppling down the hill, where I had just +strolled down, and sunshine!’ He suddenly threw up his hand. ‘Oh, marvellous! +streaming in gold—flaming, like God’s own ante-chamber.’ +</p> + +<p> +There was a very pregnant pause. Mr Bethany shrunk back a little into his +chair. His lips moved; he folded his spectacles. +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes, yes,’ he said. And then very quietly he stole one mole-like look into his +sidesman’s face. +</p> + +<p> +‘What is Dr Simon’s number?’ he said. Lawford was gazing gloomily into the +fire. ‘Oh, Annandale,’ he replied absently. ‘I don’t know the number.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Do you believe in him? Your wife mentioned him. Is he clever?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Oh, he’s new,’ said Lawford; ‘old James was our doctor. He—he killed my +father.’ He laughed out shamefacedly. +</p> + +<p> +‘A sound, lovable man,’ said Mr Bethany, ‘one of the kindest men I ever knew; +and a very old friend of mine.’ +</p> + +<p> +And suddenly the dark face turned with a shudder from the fire, and spoke in a +low trembling voice. ‘Only one thing—only one thing—my sanity, my sanity. If +once I forget, who will believe me?’ He thrust his long lean fingers beneath +his coat. ‘And mad,’ he added; ‘I would sooner die.’ +</p> + +<p> +Mr Bethany deliberately adjusted his spectacles. ‘May I, may I experiment?’ he +said boldly. There came a tap on the door. +</p> + +<p> +‘Bless me,’ said the vicar, taking out his watch, ‘it is a quarter to twelve. +‘Yes, yes, Mrs Lawford,’ he trotted round to the door. ‘We are beginning to see +light—a ray!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘But I—<i>I</i> can see in the dark,’ whispered Lawford, as if at a cue, +turning with an inscrutable smile to the fire. +</p> + +<p> +The vicar came again, wrapped up in a little tight grey great-coat, and a white +silk muffler. He looked up unflinching into Lawford’s face, and tears stood in +his eyes. ‘Patience, patience, my dear fellow,’ he repeated gravely, squeezing +his hand. ‘And rest, complete rest, is imperative. Just till the first thing +to-morrow. And till then,’ he turned to Mrs Lawford, where she stood looking in +at the doorway, ‘oh yes, complete quiet; and caution!’ +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Lawford let him out. He shook his head once or twice, holding her fingers. +‘Oh yes,’ he whispered, ‘it is your husband, not the smallest doubt. I tried: +for <i>myself</i>. But something—something has happened. Don’t fret him now. +Have patience. Oh yes, it is incredible... the change! But there, the very +first thing to-morrow.’ She closed the door gently after him, and stepping +softly back to the dining-room, peered in. Her husband’s back was turned, but +he could see her in the looking-glass, stooping a little, with set face +watching him, in the silvery stillness. +</p> + +<p> +‘Well,’ he said, ‘is the old—’ he doggedly met the fixed eyes facing him there, +‘is our old friend gone?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes,’ said Sheila, ‘he’s gone.’ Lawford sighed and turned round. ‘It’s useless +talking now, Sheila. No more questions. I cannot tell you how tired I am. And +my head—’ +</p> + +<p> +‘What is wrong with your head?’ inquired his wife discreetly. +</p> + +<p> +The haggard face turned gravely and patiently. ‘Only one of my old headaches,’ +he smiled, ‘my old bilious headaches—the hereditary Lawford variety.’ But his +voice fell low again. ‘We must get to bed.’ +</p> + +<p> +With a rather pretty and childish movement, Sheila gently drew her hands across +her silk skirts. ‘Yes, dear,’ she said, ‘I have made up a bed for you in the +large spare room. It is thoroughly aired.’ She came softly in, hastened over to +a closed work-table that stood under the curtains, and opened it. +</p> + +<p> +Lawford watched her, utterly expressionless, utterly motionless. He opened his +mouth and shut it again, still watching his wife as she stooped with +ridiculously too busy fingers, searching through her coloured silks. +</p> + +<p> +Again he opened his mouth. ‘Yes,’ he said, and stalked slowly towards the door. +But there he paused. ‘God knows,’ he said, strangely and meekly, ‘I am sorry, +sorry for all this. You will forgive me, Sheila?’ +</p> + +<p> +She looked up swiftly. ‘It’s very tiresome, I can’t find anywhere,’ she +murmured, ‘I can’t find anywhere the—the little red box key.’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford’s cheek turned more sallow than ever. ‘You are only pretending to look +for it,’ he said, ‘to try me. We both know perfectly well the lock is broken. +Ada broke it.’ +</p> + +<p> +Sheila let fall the lid; and yet for a while her eyes roved over it as if in +violent search for something. Then she turned: ‘I am so very glad the vicar was +at home,’ she said brightly. ‘And mind, mind you rest, Arthur. There’s nothing +so bad but it might be worse.... Oh, I can’t, I can’t bear it!’ She sat down in +the chair and huddled her face between her hands, sobbing on and on, without a +tear. +</p> + +<p> +Lawford listened and stared solemnly. ‘Whatever it may be, Sheila, I will be +loyal,’ he said. +</p> + +<p> +Her sobs hushed, and again cold horror crept over her. Nobody in the whole +world could have said that ‘I will be loyal’ quite like that—nobody but Arthur. +She stood up, patting her hair. ‘I don’t think my brain would bear much more. +It’s useless to talk. If you will go up; I will put out the lamp.’ +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap04"></a> +CHAPTER FOUR</h2> + +<p> +One solitary and tall candle burned on the great dressing-table. Faint, +solitary pictures broke the blankness of each wall. The carpet was rich, the +bed impressive, and the basins on the washstand as uninviting as the bed. +Lawford sat down on the edge of it in complete isolation. He sat without +stirring, listening to his watch ticking in his pocket. The china clock on the +chimney piece pointed cheerfully to the hour of dawn. It was exactly, he +computed carefully, five hours and seven minutes fast. Not the slightest sound +broke the stillness, until he heard, very, very softly and gradually, the key +of his door turn in the oiled wards, and realized that he was a prisoner. +</p> + +<p> +Women were strange creatures. How often he had heard that said, he thought +lamely. He felt no anger, no surprise or resentment, at the trick. It was only +to be expected. He could sit on till morning; easily till morning. He had never +noticed before how empty a well-furnished room could seem. It was his own room +too; his best visitors’ room. His father-in-law had slept here, with his +whiskers on that pillow. His wife’s most formidable aunt had been all night +here, alone with these pictures. She certainly was... ‘But what are <i>you</i> +doing here?’ cried a voice suddenly out of his reverie. +</p> + +<p> +He started up and stretched himself, and taking out the neat little packet that +the maid had brought from the chemist’s, he drew up a chair, and sat down once +more in front of the glass. He sighed vacantly, rose and lifted down from the +wall above the fireplace a tinted photograph of himself that Sheila had had +enlarged about twelve years ago. It was a brighter, younger, hairier, but +unmistakably the same dull indolent Lawford who had ventured into Widderstone +churchyard that afternoon. The cheek was a little plumper, the eyes not quite +so full-lidded, the hair a little more precisely parted, the upper lip graced +with a small blonde moustache. He tilted the portrait into the candlelight, and +compared it with this reflection in the glass of what had come out of +Widderstone, feature with feature, with perfect composure and extreme care. +Then he laid down the massive frame on the table, and gazed quietly at the tiny +packet. +</p> + +<p> +It was to be a day of queer experiences. He had never before realized with how +many miracles mere everyday life is besieged. Here in this small punctilious +packet lay a Sesame—a power of transformation beside which the transformation +of that rather flaccid face of the noonday into this tense, sinister face of +midnight was but as a moving from house to house—a change just as irrevocable +and complete, and yet so very normal. Which should it be, that, or—his face +lifted itself once more to the ice-like gloom of the looking-glass—that, or +this? +</p> + +<p> +It simply gazed back with a kind of quizzical pity on its lean features under +the scrutiny of eyes so deep, so meaningful, so desolate, and yet so +indomitably courageous. In the brain behind them a slow and stolid argument was +in progress; the one baffling reply on the one side to every appeal on the +other being still simply. ‘What dreams may come?’ +</p> + +<p> +Those eyes surely knew something of dreams, else, why this violent and stubborn +endeavour to keep awake. +</p> + +<p> +Lawford did indeed once actually frame the question, ‘But who the devil are +you?’ And it really seemed the eyes perceptibly widened or brightened. The mere +vexation of his unparalleled position. Sheila’s pathetic incredulity, his old +vicar’s laborious kindness, the tiresome network of experience into which he +would be dragged struggling on the morrow, and on the morrow after that, and +after that—the thought of all these things faded for the moment from his mind, +lost if not their significance, at least their instancy. +</p> + +<p> +He simply sat face to face with the sheer difficulty of living on at all. He +even concluded in a kind of lethargy that if nothing had occurred, no ‘change,’ +he might still be sitting here, Arthur Rennet Lawford, in his best visitor’s +room, deciding between inscrutable life and just—death. He supposed he was +tired out. His thoughts hadn’t even the energy to complete themselves. None +cared but himself and this—this Silence. +</p> + +<p> +‘But what does it all mean?’ the insistent voice he was getting to know so well +began tediously inquiring again. And every time he raised his eyes, or, rather, +as in many cases it seemed, his eyes raised themselves, they saw this haunting +face there—a face he no longer bitterly rebelled at, nor dimmed with scrutiny, +but a face that was becoming a kind of hold on life, even a kind of refuge, an +ally. It was a face that might have come out of a rather flashy book; or such +as is revered on the stage. ‘A rotten bad face,’ he whispered at it in his own +familiar slang, after some such abrupt encounter; a fearless, packed, daring, +fascinating face, with even—what?—a spice of genius in it. Whose the devil’s +face was it? What on earth was the matter?... ‘Brazen it out,’ a jubilant +thought cried suddenly; ‘follow it up; play the game! give me just one opening. +Think—think what I’ve risked!’ +</p> + +<p> +And all these voices thought Lawford, in deadly lassitude, meant only one +thing—insanity. A blazing, impotent indignation seized him. He leaned near, +peering as it were out of a red dusky mist. He snatched up the china +candlestick, and poised it above the sardonic reflection, as if to throw. Then +slowly, with infinite pains, he drew back from the glass and replaced the +candlestick on the table; stuffed his paper packet into his pocket, took off +his boots and threw himself on to the bed. In a little while, in the faint, +still light, he opened drowsily wondering eyes. ‘Poor old thing!’ his voice +murmured, ‘Poor old Sheila!’ +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap05"></a> +CHAPTER FIVE</h2> + +<p> +It was but little after daybreak when Mrs Lawford, after listening at his door +a while, turned the key and looked in on her husband. Blue-grey light from +between the venetian blinds just dusked the room. She stood in a bluish +dressing-gown, her hand on her bosom, looking down on the lean impassive face. +For the briefest instant her heart had leapt with an indescribable surmise; to +fall dull as lead once more. Breathing equably and quietly, the strange figure +lay stretched upon the bed. ‘How can he sleep? How can he sleep?’ she whispered +with a black and hopeless indignation. What a night she had had! And he! +</p> + +<p> +She turned noiselessly away. The candle had guttered to extinction. The big +glass reflected her, voluminous and wan, her dark-ringed eyes, full lips, rich, +glossy hair, and rounded chin. ‘Yes, yes,’ it seemed to murmur mournfully. She +turned away, and drawing stealthily near stooped once more quite low, and +examined the face on the pillow with lynx-like concentration. And though every +nerve revolted at the thought, she was finally convinced, unwillingly, but +assuredly, that her husband was here. Indeed, if it were not so, how could she +for a single moment have accepted the possibility that he was a stranger? He +seemed to haunt, like a ghostly emanation, this strange, detestable face—as +memory supplies the features concealed beneath a mask. The face was still and +stony, like one dead or imaged in wax, yet beneath it dreams were +passing—silly, ordinary Lawford dreams. She was almost alarmed at the terribly +rancorous hatred she felt for the face... ‘It was just like Arthur to be so +taken in!’ +</p> + +<p> +Then she too remembered Quain, and remembered also in the slowly paling dusk +that the house would soon be stirring. She went out and noiselessly locked the +door again. But it was useless to begin looking for Quain now—her husband had a +good many dull books, most of them his ‘eccentric’ father’s. What must the +servants be thinking? and what was all that talk about a mysterious visitor? +She would have to question Ada—diplomatically. She returned to her room and sat +down in an arm-chair, and waited. In sheer weariness she fell into a doze, and +woke at the sound of dustpan and broom. She rang the bell, and asked for hot +water, tea, and a basin of cornflour. +</p> + +<p> +‘And please, Ada, be as quiet as possible over your work; your master is in a +nice sleep, and must not be disturbed on any account. In the front bedroom.’ +She looked up suddenly. ‘By the way, who let Dr Ferguson in last night?’ It was +dangerous, but successful. +</p> + +<p> +‘Dr Ferguson, ma’am? Oh, you mean... He <i>was</i> in.’ +</p> + +<p> +Sheila smiled resignedly. ‘Was in? What do you mean, “was in”? And where were +you, then?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I had been sent out to Critchett’s, the chemist’s.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Of course, of course. So cook let Dr Ferguson in, then? Why didn’t you say so +before, Ada? And did you bring the medicine with you?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘It was a packet in an envelope, ma’am. But Cook is sure she heard no knock—not +while I was out. So Dr Ferguson must have come in quite unbeknown.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Well, really,’ said Sheila, ‘it seems very difficult to get at the truth +sometimes. And when illness is in the house I cannot understand why there +should be no one available to answer the door. You must have left it ajar, +unsecured, when you went out. And pray, what if Dr Ferguson had been some +common tramp? That would have been a nice thing.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I am quite certain,’ said Ada a little flatly, ‘that I did shut the door. And +cook says she never so much as stirred from the kitchen till I came down the +area steps with the packet. And that’s all I know about it, ma’am; except that +he was here when I came back. I did not know even there was a Dr Ferguson; and +my mother has lived here nineteen years.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘We must be thankful your mother enjoys such good health,’ replied Mrs Lawford +suavely. ‘Please tell cook to be very careful with the cornflour—to be sure +it’s well mixed and thoroughly done.’ +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Lawford’s eyes followed with a certain discomfort those narrow print +shoulders descending the stairs. And this abominable ruse was—Arthur’s! She ran +up lightly and listened with her ear to the panel of his door. And just as she +was about to turn away again, there came a little light knock at the front +door. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Lawford paused at the loop of the staircase; and not altogether with +gratitude or relief she heard the voice of Mr Bethany, inquiring in cautious +but quite audible tones after her husband. +</p> + +<p> +She dressed quickly and went down. The little white old man looked very +solitary in the long, fireless, drawing-room. +</p> + +<p> +‘I could not sleep,’ he said; ‘I don’t think I grasped in the least, I don’t +indeed, until I was nearly home, the complexity of our problem. I came, in +fact, to a lamppost. It was casting a peculiar shadow. And then—you know how +such thoughts seize us, my dear—like a sudden inspiration, I realised how +tenuous, how appallingly tenuous a hold we every one of us have on our mere +personality. But that,’ he continued rapidly, ‘that’s only for ourselves—and +after the event. Ours, just now, is to act. And first—?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘You really do, then—you really are convinced—’ began Mrs Lawford. +</p> + +<p> +But Mr Bethany was too quick. ‘We must be <i>most</i> circumspect. My dear +friend, we must be <i>most</i> circumspect, for all our sakes. And this, you’ll +say,’ he added, smiling, stretching out his arms, his soft hat in one hand, his +umbrella in the other—‘this is being circumspect—a seven o’clock in the morning +call! But you see, my dear, I have come, as I took the precaution of explaining +to the maid, because it’s now or never to-day. It does so happen that I have to +take a wedding for an old friend’s niece at Witchett; so when in need, you see, +Providence enables us to tell even the conventional truth. Now really, how is +he? has he slept? has he recalled himself at all? is there any change?—and, +dear me, how are <i>you</i>?’ +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Lawford sighed. ‘A broken night is really very little to a mother,’ she +said. ‘He is still asleep. He hasn’t, I think, stirred all night.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Not stirred!’ Mr Bethany repeated. ‘You baffle me. And you have watched?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Oh no,’ was the cheerful answer; ‘I felt that quiet, solitude; space, was +everything; he preferred it so. He—he changed alone, I suppose. Don’t you think +it almost stands to reason that he will be alone...when he comes back? Was I +right? But there, it’s useless, it’s worse than useless, to talk like this. My +husband is gone. Some terrible thing has happened. Whatever the mystery may be, +he will never come back alive. My only fear is that I am dragging you into a +matter that should from the beginning have been entrusted to—Oh, it’s +monstrous!’ It appeared for a moment as if she were blinking to keep back her +tears, yet her scrutiny seemed merely to harden. +</p> + +<p> +Only the merest flicker of the folded eyelids over the greenish eyes of her +visitor answered the challenge. He stood small and black, peeping fixedly out +of the window at the sunflecked laurels. +</p> + +<p> +‘Last night,’ he said slowly, ‘when I said good-bye to your husband, on the tip +of my tongue were the words I have used, in season and out of season, for +nearly forty-five years—“God knows best.” Well, my dear lady, a sense of +humour, a sense of reverence, or perhaps even a taint of scepticism—call it +what you will—just intercepted them. Oh no, not any of these, my child; just +pity, overwhelming pity. God does know best; but in a matter like this it is +not even my place to say so. It would be good for none of us to endanger our +souls even with <i>verbal</i> cant. Now, if, do you think, I had just five +minutes’ talk—five minutes; would it disquiet him?’ +</p> + +<p> +Only by an almost undignified haste, for the vicar was remarkably agile, Sheila +managed to unlock the bedroom door without apparently his perceiving it, and +with a warning finger she preceded him into the great bedroom. ‘Oh, yes, yes,’ +he was whispering to himself; ‘alone—well, well!’ He hung his hat on his +umbrella and leaned it in a corner, and then he turned. +</p> + +<p> +‘I don’t think, you know, an old friend does him any wrong; but last night I +had no real oppor—’ He firmly adjusted his spectacles, and looked long into the +dark, dispassioned face. +</p> + +<p> +‘H’m!’ he said, and fidgeted, and peered again. Mrs Lawford watched him keenly. +</p> + +<p> +‘Do you still—’ she began. +</p> + +<p> +But at the same moment he too broke silence, suddenly stepping back with the +innocent remark, ‘Has he—has he asked for anything?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Only for Quain.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘“Quain”?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘The medical Dictionary.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Oh, yes; bless me; of course.... A calm, complete sleep of utter +prostration—utter nervous prostration. And can one wonder? Poor fellow, poor +fellow!’ He walked to the window and peered between the blinds. ‘Sparrows, +sunshine—yes, and here’s the postman,’ he said, as if to himself. Then he +turned sharply round, with mind made up. +</p> + +<p> +‘Now, do you leave me here,’ he said. ‘Take half an hour’s quiet rest. He will +be glad of a dull old fellow like me when he wakes. And as for my pretty bride, +if I miss the train, she must wait till the next. Good discipline, my dear. Oh, +dear me! <i>I</i> don’t change. What a precious experience now this would have +been for a tottery, talkative, owlish old parochial creature like me. But +there, there. Light words make heavy hearts, I see. I shall be quite +comfortable. No, no, I breakfasted at home. There’s hat and umbrella; at 9.3 I +can fly.’ +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Lawford thanked him mutely. He smilingly but firmly bowed her out and +closed the door. +</p> + +<p> +But eyes and brain had been very busy. He had looked at the gutted candle; at +the tinted bland portrait on the dressing-table; at the chair drawn-up; at the +boots; and now again he turned almost with a groan towards the sleeper. Then he +took out an envelope, on which he had jotted various memoranda, and waited +awhile. Minutes passed and at last the sleeper faintly stirred, muttering. +</p> + +<p> +Mr Bethany stooped quickly. ‘What is it, what is it?’ he whispered. +</p> + +<p> +Lawford sighed. ‘I was only dreaming, Sheila,’ he said, and softly, peacefully +opened his eyes. ‘I dreamed I was in the—’ His lids narrowed, his dark eyes +fixed themselves on the anxious spectacled face bending over him. ‘Mr Bethany! +Where? What’s wrong?’ +</p> + +<p> +His friend put out his hand. ‘There, there,’ he said soothingly, ‘do not be +disturbed; do not disquiet yourself.’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford struggled up. Slowly, painfully consciousness returned to him. He +glanced furtively round the room, at his clothes, slinkingly at the vicar; +licked his lips; flushed with extraordinary rapidity; and suddenly burst into +tears. +</p> + +<p> +Mr Bethany sat without movement, waiting till he should have spent himself. +‘Now, Lawford,’ he said gently, ‘compose yourself, old friend. We must face the +music—like men.’ He went to the window, drew up the blind, peeped out, and took +off his spectacles. +</p> + +<p> +‘The first thing to be done,’ he said, returning briskly to his chair, ‘is to +send for Simon. Now, does Simon know you <i>well?</i>’ Lawford shook his head. +‘Would he recognise you?... I mean...’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I have only met him once—in the evening.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Good; let him come immediately, then. Tell him just the facts. If I am not +mistaken, he will pooh-pooh the whole thing; tell you to keep quiet, not to +worry, and so on. My dear fellow, if we realised, say, typhoid, who’d dare to +face it? That will give us time; to wait a while, to recover our breath, to see +what happens next. And if—as I don’t believe for a moment—Why, in that case I +heard the other day of a most excellent man—Grosser, of Wimpole Street; nerves. +He would be absorbed. He’ll bottle you in spirit, Lawford. We’ll have him down +quietly. You see? But there won’t be any necessity. Oh no. By then light will +have come. We shall remember. What I mean is this.’ He crossed his legs and +pushed out his lips. ‘We are on quaky ground; and it’s absolutely essential +that you keep cool, and trust. I am yours, heart and soul—you know that. I own +frankly, at first I was shaken. And I have, I confess, been very cunning. But +first, faith, then evidence to bolster it up. The faith was absolute’—he placed +one firm hand on Lawford’s knee—‘why, I cannot explain; but it was. The +evidence is convincing. But there are others to think of. The shock, the +incredibleness, the consequences; we must not scan too closely. Think +<i>with</i>; never against: and bang go all the arguments. Your wife, poor +dear, believes; but of course, of course, she is horribly—’ he broke off; ‘of +course she is <i>shaken</i>, you old simpleton! Time will heal all that. Time +will wear out the mask. Time will tire out this detestable physical witchcraft. +The mind, the self’s the thing. Old fogey though I may seem for saying it—that +must be kept unsmirched. We won’t go wearily over the painful subject again. +You told me last night, dear old friend, that you were absolutely alone at +Widderstone. That is enough. But here we have visible facts, tangible effects, +and there must have been a definite reason and a cause for them. I believe in +the devil, in the Powers of Darkness, Lawford, as firmly as I believe he and +they are powerless—in the long run. They—what shall we say?—have surrendered +their intrinsicality. You can just go through evil, as you can go through a +sewer, and come out on the other side too. A loathsome process too. But +there—we are not speaking of any such monstrosities, and even if we were, you +and I with God’s help would just tire them out. And that ally gone, our poor +dear old Mrs Grundy will at once capitulate. Eh? Eh?’ +</p> + +<p> +Through all this long and arduous harangue, consciousness, like the gradual +light of dawn, had been flooding that other brain. And the face that now +confronted Mr Bethany, though with his feeble unaided sight he could only very +obscurely discern it, was vigilant and keen, in every sharp-cut hungry feature. +</p> + +<p> +A rather prolonged silence followed, the visitor peering mutely. The black eyes +nearly closed, the face turned slowly towards the window, saw burnt-out candle, +comprehensive glass. +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes, yes.’ he said; ‘I’ll send for Simon at once.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Good,’ said Mr Bethany, and more doubtfully repeated ‘good.’ ‘Now there’s only +one thing left,’ he went on cheerfully. ‘I have jotted down a few test +questions here; they are questions no one on this earth could answer but you, +Lawford. They are merely for external proofs. You won’t, you can’t, mistake my +motive. We cannot foretell or foresee what need may arise for just such +jog-trot primitive evidence. I propose that you now answer them here, in +writing.’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford stood up and walked to the looking-glass, and paused. He put his hand +to his head, ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘of course; it’s a rattling good move. I’m not +quite awake; myself, I mean. I’ll do it now.’ He took out a pencil case and +tore another leaf from his pocket-book. ‘What are they?’ +</p> + +<p> +Mr Bethany rang the bell. Sheila herself answered it. She stood on the +threshold and looked across through a shaft of autumnal sunshine at her +husband, and her husband with a quiet strange smile looked across through the +sunshine at his wife. Mr Bethany waited in vain. +</p> + +<p> +‘I am just going to put the arch-impostor through his credentials,’ he said +tartly. ‘Now then, Lawford!’ He read out the questions, one by one, from his +crafty little list, pursing his lips between each; and one by one, Lawford, +seated at the dressing-table, fluently scribbled his answers. Then question and +answer were rigorously compared by Mr Bethany, with small white head bent close +and spectacles poised upon the powerful nose, and signed and dated, and passed +to Mrs Lawford without a word. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Lawford read question and answer where she stood, in complete silence. She +looked up. ‘Many of these questions I don’t know the answers to myself,’ she +said. +</p> + +<p> +‘It is immaterial,’ said Mr Bethany. +</p> + +<p> +‘One answer is—is inaccurate. ‘Yes, yes, quite so: due to a mistake in a letter +from myself.’ +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Lawford read quietly on, folded the papers, and held them out between +finger and thumb. ‘The—handwriting...’ she remarked very softly. +</p> + +<p> +‘Wonderful, isn’t it?’ said Mr Bethany warmly; ‘all the general look and run of +the thing different, but every real essential feature unchanged. Now into the +envelope. And now a little wax?’ +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Lawford stood waiting. ‘There’s a green piece of sealing-wax,’ almost +drawled the quiet voice, ‘in the top right drawer of the nest in the study, +which old James gave me the Christmas before last.’ He glanced with lowered +eyelids at his wife’s flushed cheek. Their eyes met. +</p> + +<p> +‘Thank you,’ she said. +</p> + +<p> +When she returned the vicar was sitting in a chair, leaning his chin on the +knobbed handle of his umbrella. He rose and lit a taper for her with a match +from a little green pot on the table. And Mrs Lawford, with trembling fingers, +sealed the letter, as he directed, with his own seal. +</p> + +<p> +‘There!’ he said triumphantly, ‘how many more such brilliant lawyers, I wonder, +lie dormant in the Church? And who shall keep this?... Why, all three, of +course.’ He went on without pausing. ‘Some little drawer now, secret and +undetectable, with a lock.’ Just such a little drawer that locked itself with a +spring lay by chance in the looking-glass. There the letter was hidden. And Mr +Bethany looked at his watch. ‘Nineteen minutes,’ he said. ‘The next thing, my +dear child—we’re getting on swimmingly—and it’s astonishing how things are +simplified by mere use—the next thing is to send for Simon.’ +</p> + +<p> +Sheila took a deep breath, but did not look up. ‘I am entirely in your hands,’ +she replied. +</p> + +<p> +‘So be it,’ said he crisply. ‘Get to bed, Lawford; it’s better so. And I’ll +look in on my way back from Witchett. I came, my dear fellow, in gloomy +disturbance of mind. It was getting up too early; it fogs old brains. Good-bye, +good-bye.’ +</p> + +<p> +He squeezed Lawford’s hand. Then, with umbrella under his arm, his hat on his +head, his spectacles readjusted, he hurried out of the room. Mrs Lawford +followed him. For a few minutes Lawford sat motionless, with head bent a +little, and eyes restlessly scanning the door. Then he rose abruptly, and in a +quarter of an hour was in bed, alone with his slow thoughts: while a basin of +cornflour stood untasted on a little table at his bedside, and a cheerful fire +burned in the best visitors’ room’s tiny grate. +</p> + +<p> +At half-past eleven Dr Simon entered this soundless seclusion. He sat down +beside Lawford, and took temperature and pulse. Then he half closed his lids, +and scanned his patient out of an unusually dark, un-English face, with +straight black hair, and listened attentively to his rather incoherent story. +It was a story very much modified and rounded off. Nor did Lawford draw Dr +Simon’s attention to the portrait now smiling conventionally above their heads +from the wall over the fireplace. +</p> + +<p> +‘It was rather bleak—the wind; and, I think, perhaps, I had had a touch of +influenza. It was a silly thing to do. But still, Dr Simon, one doesn’t +expect—well, there, I don’t feel the same man—physically. I really cannot +explain how great a change has taken place. And yet I feel perfectly fit in +myself. And if it were not for—for being laughed at, go back to town, to-day. +Why my wife scarcely recognised me.’ +</p> + +<p> +Dr Simon continued his scrutiny. Try as he would, Lawford could not raise his +downcast eyes to meet direct the doctor’s polite attention. +</p> + +<p> +‘And what,’ said Dr Simon, ‘what precisely is the nature of the change? Have +you any pain?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘No, not the least pain,’ said Lawford; ‘I think, perhaps, or rather my face +<i>is</i> a little shrunken—and yet lengthened; at least it feels so; and a +faint twinge of rheumatism. But my hair—well, I don’t know; it’s difficult to +say one’s self.’ He could get on so very much better, he thought, if only his +mind would be at peace and these preposterous promptings and voices were still. +</p> + +<p> +Dr Simon faced the window, and drew his hand softly over his head. ‘We never +can be too cautious at a certain age, and especially after influenza,’ he said. +‘It undermines the whole system, and in particular the nervous system; leaving +the mind the prey of the most melancholy fancies. I should astound you, Mr +Lawford, with the devil influenza plays.... A slight nervous shock and a chill; +quite slight, I hope. A few days’ rest and plenty of nourishment. There’s +nothing; temperature inconsiderable. All perfectly intelligible. Most certainly +reassure yourself! And as for the change you speak of’—he looked steadily at +the dark face on the pillow and smiled amiably—‘I don’t think we need worry +much about that. It certainly was a bleak wind yesterday—and a cemetery, my +dear sir! It was indiscreet—yes, very.’ He held out his hand. ‘You must not be +alarmed,’ he said, very distinctly with the merest trace of an accent; ‘air, +sunshine, quiet, nourishment; sleep—that is all. The little window might be a +few inches open, and—and any light reading.’ +</p> + +<p> +He opened the door and joined Mrs Lawford on the staircase. He talked to her +quietly over his shoulder all the way downstairs. ‘It was, it was sporting with +Providence—a wind, believe me, nearly due east, in spite of the warm sunshine.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘But the change—the change!’ Mrs Lawford managed to murmur tragically, as he +strode to the door. Dr Simon smiled, and gracefully tapped his forehead with a +red-gloved forefinger. +</p> + +<p> +‘Humour him, humour him,’ he repeated indulgently. ‘Rest and quiet will soon +put that little trouble out of his head. Oh yes, I did notice it—the set drawn +look, and the droop: quite so. Good morning.’ +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Lawford gently closed the door after him. A glimpse of Ada, crossing from +room to room, suggested a precaution. She called out in her clearest notes. ‘If +Dr Ferguson should call while I am out, Ada, will you please tell him that Dr +Simon regretted that he was unable to wait? Thank you.’ She paused with hand on +the balusters, then slowly ascended the stairs. Her husband’s face was turned +to the ceiling, his hands clasped above his head. She took up her stand by the +fireplace, resting one silk-slippered foot on the fender. ‘Dr Simon is +reassuring,’ she said, ‘but I do hope, Arthur, you will follow his advice. He +looks a fairly clever man.... But with a big practice.... Do you think, dear, +he quite realised the extent of the—the change?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I told him what happened,’ said her husband’s voice out of the bed-clothes. +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes, yes, I know,’ said Sheila soothingly; ‘but we must remember he is +comparatively a stranger. He would not detect—’ +</p> + +<p> +‘What did he tell you?’ asked the voice. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Lawford deliberately considered. If only he would always thus keep his face +concealed, how much easier it would be to discuss matters rationally. ‘You see, +dear,’ she said softly, ‘I know, of course, nothing about the nerves; but +personally, I think his suggestion absurd. No mere fancy, surely, can make a +lasting alteration in one’s face. And your hair—I don’t want to say anything +that may seem unkind—but isn’t it really quite a distinct shade darker, +Arthur?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Any great strain will change the colour of a man’s hair,’ said Lawford +stolidly; ‘at any rate, to white. Why, I read once of a fellow in India, a +Hindoo, or something, who—’ +</p> + +<p> +‘But have you <i>had</i> any intense strain, or anxiety?’ broke in Sheila. ‘You +might, at least, have confided in me; that is, unless—But there, don’t you +think really, Arthur, it would be much more satisfactory in every way if we had +further advice at once? Alice will be home next week. To-morrow is the Harvest +Festival, and next week, of course, the Dedication; and, in any case, the +Bazaar is out of the question. They will have to find another stall-holder. We +must do our utmost to avoid comment or scandal. Every minute must help to—to +fix a thing like that. I own even now I cannot realise what this awful calamity +means. It’s useless to brood on it. We must, as the poor dear old vicar said +only last night, keep our heads clear. But I am sure Dr Simon was under a +misapprehension. If, now, it was explained to him, a little more fully, +Arthur—a photograph. Oh, anything on earth but this dreadful wearing +uncertainty and suspense! Besides ...is Simon quite an English name?’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford drew further into his pillow. ‘Do as you think best, Sheila,’ he said. +‘For my own part, I believe it may be as he suggests—partly an illusion, a +touch of nervous breakdown. It simply can’t be as bad as I think it is. If it +were, you would not be here talking like this; and Bethany wouldn’t have +believed a word I said. Whatever it is, it’s no good crying it on the +housetops. Give me time, just time. Besides, how do we know what he really +thought? Doctors don’t tell their patients everything. Give the poor chap a +chance, and more so if he is a foreigner. He’s’—his voice sank almost to a +whisper—‘he’s no darker than this. And do, please, Sheila, take this infernal +stuff away, and let me have something solid. I’m not ill—in that way. All I +want is peace and quiet, time to think. Let me fight it out alone. It’s been +sprung on me. The worst’s not over. But I’ll win through; wait! And if +not—well, you shall not suffer, Sheila. Don’t be afraid. There are other ways +out.’ +</p> + +<p> +Sheila broke down. ‘Any one would think to hear you talk, that I was perfectly +heartless. I told Ada to be most careful about the cornflour. And as for other +ways out, it’s a positively wicked thing to say to me when I’m nearly +distracted with trouble and anxiety. What motive could you have had for +loitering in an old cemetery? And in an east wind! It’s useless for me to +remain here, Arthur, to be accused of every horrible thing that comes into a +morbid imagination. I will leave you, as you suggest, in peace.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘One moment, Sheila,’ answered the muffled voice. ‘I have accused you of +nothing. If you knew all; if you could read my thoughts, you would be +surprised, perhaps, at my—But never mind that. On the other hand, I really do +think it would be better for the present to discuss the thing no more. To-day +is Friday. Give this miserable face a week. Talk it over with Bethany if you +like. But I forbid’—he struggled up in bed, sallow and sinister—‘I flatly +forbid, please understand, any other interference till then. Afterwards you +must do exactly as you please. Send round the Town Crier! But till then, +silence!’ +</p> + +<p> +Sheila with raised head confronted him. ‘This, then, is your gratitude. So be +it. Silence, no doubt! Until it’s too late to take action. Until you have +wormed your way in, and think you are safe. To have believed! Where is my +husband? that is what I am asking you now. When and how you have learned his +secrets God only knows, and your conscience! But he always was a simpleton at +heart. I warn you, then. Until next Thursday I consent to say nothing provided +you remain quiet; make no disturbance, no scandal here. The servants and all +who inquire shall simply be told that my husband is confined to his room +with—with a nervous breakdown, as you have yourself so glibly suggested. I am +at your mercy, I own it. The vicar believes your preposterous story—with his +spectacles off. You would convince anybody with the wicked cunning with which +you have cajoled and wheedled him, with which you have deceived and fooled a +foreign doctor. But you will not convince me. You will not convince Alice. I +have friends in the world, though you may not be aware of it, who will not be +quite so apt to believe any cock-and-bull story you may see fit to invent. That +is all I have to say. To-night I tell the vicar all that I have just told you. +And from this moment, please, we are strangers. I shall come into the room no +more than necessity dictates. On Friday we resume our real parts. My +husband—Arthur—to—to connive at... Phh!’ +</p> + +<p> +Rage had transfigured her. She scarcely heard her own words. They poured out +senselessly, monotonously, one calling up another, as if from the lips of a +Cassandra. Lawford sank back into bed, clutching the sheets with both lean +hands. He took a deep breath and shut his mouth. +</p> + +<p> +‘It reminds me, Sheila,’ he began arduously, ‘of our first quarrel before we +were married, the evening after your aunt Rose died at Llandudno—do you +remember? You threw open the window, and I think—I saved your life.’ A pause +followed. Then a queer, almost inarticulate voice added, ‘At least, I am afraid +so.’ +</p> + +<p> +A cold and awful quietness fell on Sheila’s heart. She stared fixedly at the +tuft of dark hair, the only visible sign of her husband, on the pillow. Then, +taking up the basin of cold cornflour, she left the room. In a quarter of an +hour she reappeared carrying a tray, with ham and eggs and coffee and honey +invitingly displayed. She laid it down. +</p> + +<p> +‘There is only one other question,’ she said, with perfect composure—‘that of +money. Your signature as it appears on the—the document drawn up this morning, +would, of course, be quite useless on a cheque. I have taken all the money I +could find; it is in safety. You may, however, conceivably be in need of some +yourself; here is five pounds. I have my own cheque-book, and shall therefore +have no need to consider the question again for—for the present. So far as you +are concerned, I shall be guided solely by Mr Bethany. He will, I do not doubt, +take full responsibility.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘And may the Lord have mercy on my soul!’ uttered a stifled, unfamiliar voice +from the bed. Mrs Lawford stooped. ‘Arthur!’ she cried faintly, ‘Arthur!’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford raised himself on his elbow with a sigh that was very near to being a +sob. ‘Oh, Sheila, if you’d only be your real self! What is the use of all this +pretence? Just consider <i>my</i> position a little. The fear and horror are +not all on your side. You called me Arthur even then. I’d willingly do anything +you wish to save you pain; you know that. Can’t we be friends even in this—this +ghastly—Won’t you, Sheila?’ +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Lawford drew back, struggling with a doubtful heart. +</p> + +<p> +‘I think,’ she said, ‘it would be better not to discuss that now.’ +</p> + +<p> +The rest of the morning Lawford remained in solitude. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap06"></a> +CHAPTER SIX</h2> + +<p> +There were three books in the room—Jeremy Taylor’s ‘Holy Living and Dying,’ a +volume of the <cite>Quiver</cite>, and a little gilded book on wildflowers. He +read in vain. He lay and listened to the uproar of his thoughts on which an +occasional sound—the droning of a fly, the cry of a milkman, the noise of a +passing van—obtruded from the workaday world. The pale gold sunlight edged +softly over the bed. He ate up everything on his tray. He even, on the shoals +of nightmare, dreamed awhile. But by and by as the hours wheeled slowly on he +grew less calm, less strenuously resolved on lying there inactive. Every +sparrow that twittered cried reveille through his brain. He longed with an +ardour strange to his temperament to be up and doing. +</p> + +<p> +What if his misfortune was, as he had in the excitement of the moment suggested +to Sheila, only a morbid delusion of mind; shared too in part by sheer force of +his absurd confession? Even if he was going mad, who knows how peaceful a +release that might not be? Could his shrewd old vicar have implicitly believed +in him if the change were as complete as he supposed it? He flung off the +bedclothes and locked the door. He dressed himself, noticing, he fancied, with +a deadly revulsion of feeling, that his coat was a little too short in the +sleeves, his waistcoat too loose. In the midst of his dressing came Sheila +bringing his luncheon. ‘I’m sorry,’ he called out, stooping quickly beside the +bed, ‘I can’t talk now. Please put the tray down.’ +</p> + +<p> +About half an hour afterwards he heard the outer door close, and peeping from +behind the curtains saw his wife go out. All was drowsily quiet in the house. +He devoured his lunch like a schoolboy. That finished to the last crumb, +without a moment’s delay he covered his face with a towel, locked the door +behind him, put the key in his pocket, and ran lightly downstairs. He stuffed +the towel into an ulster pocket, put on a soft, wide-brimmed hat, and +noiselessly let himself out. Then he turned with an almost hysterical delight +and ran—ran like the wind, without pausing, without thinking, straight on, up +one turning, down another, until he reached a broad open common, thickly +wooded, sprinkled with gorse and hazel and may, and faintly purple with fading +heather. There he flung himself down in the beautiful sunlight, among the +yellowing bracken, to recover his breath. +</p> + +<p> +He lay there for many minutes, thinking almost with composure. Flight, it +seemed, had for the moment quietened the demands of that other feebly +struggling personality which was beginning to insinuate itself into his +consciousness, which had so miraculously broken in and taken possession of his +body. He would not think now. All he needed was a little quiet and patience +before he threw off for good and all his right to be free, to be his own +master, to call himself sane. +</p> + +<p> +He scrambled up and turned his face towards the westering sun. What was there +in the stillness of its beautiful splendour that seemed to sharpen his horror +and difficulty, and yet to stir him to such a daring and devilry as he had +never known since he was a boy? There was little sound of life; somewhere an +unknown bird was singing, and a few late bees were droning in the bracken. All +these years he had, like an old blind horse, stolidly plodded round and round +in a dull self-set routine. And now, just when the spirit had come for +rebellion, the mood for a harmless truancy, there had fallen with them too this +hideous enigma. He sat there with the dusky silhouette of the face that was now +drenched with sunlight in his mind’s eye. He set off again up the stony +incline. +</p> + +<p> +Why not walk on and on? In time real wholesome weariness would come; he could +sleep at ease in some pleasant wayside inn, without once meeting the eyes that +stood as it were like a window between himself and a shrewd incredulous +scoffing world that would turn him into a monstrosity and his story into a +fable. And in a little while, perhaps in three days, he would awaken out of +this engrossing nightmare, and know he was free, this black dog gone from his +back, and (as the old saying expressed it without any one dreaming what it +really meant) his own man again. How astonished Sheila would be; how warmly she +would welcome him!... Oh yes, of course she would. +</p> + +<p> +He came again to a standstill. No voice answered him out of that illimitable +gold and blue. Nothing seemed aware of him. But as he stood there, doubtful as +Cain on the outskirts of the unknown, he caught the sound of a footfall on the +lonely and stone-strewn path. +</p> + +<p> +The ground sloped steeply away to the left, and slowly mounting the hillside +came mildly on an old lady he knew, a Miss Sinnet, an old friend of his +mother’s. There was just such a little seat as that other he knew so well, on +the brow of the hill. He made his way to it, intending to sit quietly there +until the little old lady had passed by. Up and up she came. Her large bonnet +appeared, and then her mild white face, inclined a little towards him as she +ascended. Evidently this very seat was her goal; and evasion was impossible. +Evasion!... Memory rushed back and set his pulses beating. He turned boldly to +the sun, and the old lady, with a brief glance into his face, composed herself +at the other end of the little seat. She gazed out of a gentle reverie into the +golden valley. And so they sat a while. And almost as if she had felt the bond +of acquaintance between them, she presently sighed, and addressed him: ‘A very, +very, beautiful view, sir.’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford paused, then turned a gloomy, earnest face, gilded with sunshine. +‘Beautiful, indeed,’ he said, ‘but not for me. No, Miss Sinnet, not for me.’ +</p> + +<p> +The old lady gravely turned and examined the aquiline profile. ‘Well, I +confess,’ she remarked urbanely, ‘you have the advantage of me.’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford smiled uneasily. ‘Believe me, it is little advantage.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘My sight,’ said Miss Sinnet precisely, ‘is not so good as I might wish; though +better perhaps than I might have hoped; I fear I am not much wiser; your face +is still unfamiliar to me.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘It is not unfamiliar to me,’ said Lawford. Whose trickery was this? he +thought, putting such affected stuff into his mouth. +</p> + +<p> +A faint lightening of pity came into the silvery and scrupulous countenance. +‘Ah, dear me, yes,’ she said courteously. +</p> + +<p> +Lawford rested a lean hand on the seat. ‘And have you,’ he asked, ‘not the +least recollection in the world of my face?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Now really,’ she said, smiling blandly, ‘is that quite fair? Think of all the +scores and scores of faces in seventy long years; and how very treacherous +memory is. You shall do me the service of <i>reminding</i> me of one whose name +has for the moment escaped me.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I am the son of a very old friend of yours, Miss Sinnet,’ said Lawford quietly +‘a friend that was once your schoolfellow at Brighton.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Well, now,’ said the old lady, grasping her umbrella, ‘that is undoubtedly a +clue; but then, you see, all but one of the friends of my girlhood are dead; +and if I have never had the pleasure of meeting her son, unless there is a +decided resemblance, how am I to recollect <i>her</i> by looking at +<i>him?</i>’ +</p> + +<p> +‘There is, I believe, a likeness,’ said Lawford. +</p> + +<p> +She nodded her great bonnet at him with gentle amusement. ‘You are insistent in +your fancy. Well, let me think again. The last to leave me was Fanny Urquhart, +that was—let me see—last October. Now you are certainly not Fanny Urquhart’s +son,’ she stooped austerely, ‘for she never had one. Last year, too, I heard +that my dear, dear Mrs Jameson was dead. <i>Her</i> I hadn’t met for many, many +years. But, if I may venture to say so, yours is not a Scottish face; and she +not only married a Scottish husband, but was herself a Dunbar. No, I am still +at a loss.’ +</p> + +<p> +A miserable strife was in her chance companion’s mind, a strife of anger and +recrimination. He turned his eyes wearily to the fast declining sun. ‘You will +forgive my persistency, but I assure you it is a matter of life or death to me. +Is there no one my face recalls? My voice?’ +</p> + +<p> +Miss Sinnet drew her long lips together, her eyebrows lifted with the faintest +perturbation. ‘But he certainly knows my name,’ she said to herself. She turned +once more, and in the still autumnal beauty, beneath that pale blue arch of +evening, these two human beings confronted one another again. She eyed him +blandly, yet with a certain grave directness. +</p> + +<p> +‘I don’t really think,’ she said, ‘you <i>can</i> be Mary Lawford’s son. I +could scarcely have mistaken <i>him</i>.’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford gulped and turned away. He hardly knew what this surge of feeling +meant. Was it hope, despair, resentment; had he caught even the echo of an +unholy joy? His mind for a moment became confused as if in the tumult of a +struggle. He heard himself expostulate, ‘Ah, Miss Bennett, I fear I set you too +difficult a task.’ +</p> + +<p> +The old lady drew abruptly in, like a trustful and gentle snail into its +shocked house. ‘Bennett, sir; but my name is not Bennett.’ +</p> + +<p> +And again Lawford accepted the miserable prompting. ‘Not Bennett!... How can I +ever then apologise for so frantic a mistake?’ +</p> + +<p> +The little old lady took firm hold of her umbrella. She did not answer him. +‘The likeness, the likeness!’ he began unctuously, and stopped, for the glance +that dwelt fleetingly on him was cold with the formidable dignity and +displeasure of age. He raised his hat and turned miserably home. He strode on +out of the last gold into the blue twilight. What fantastic foolery of mind was +mastering him? He cast a hurried look over his shoulder at the kindly and +offended old figure sitting there, solitary, on the little seat, in her great +bonnet, with back turned resolutely upon him—the friend of his dead mother who +might have proved in his need a friend indeed to him. And he had by this insane +caprice hopelessly estranged her. +</p> + +<p> +She would remember this face well enough now, he thought bitterly, and would +take her place among his quiet enemies, if ever the day of reckoning should +come. It was scandalous, it was banal to have abused her trust and courtesy. +Oh, it was hopeless to struggle any more! The fates were against him. They had +played him a trick. He was to be their transitory sport, as many a better man +he could himself recollect had been before him. He would go home and give in; +let Sheila do with him what she pleased. No one but a lunatic could have acted +as he had, with just that frantic hint of method so remarkable in the insane. +</p> + +<p> +He left the common. A lamplighter was lighting the lamps. A thin evening haze +was on the air. If only he had stayed at home that fateful afternoon! Who, what +had induced him, enticed him to venture out? And even with the thought welled +up into his mind an intense desire to go to the old green time-worn churchyard +again; to sit there contentedly alone, where none heeded the completest +metamorphosis, down beside the yew-trees. What a fool he had been. There alone, +of course, lay his only possible chance of recovery. He would go to-morrow. +Perhaps Sheila had not yet discovered his absence; and there would be no +difficulty in repeating so successful a stratagem. +</p> + +<p> +Remembrance of his miserable mistake, of Miss Sinnet, faintly returned to him +as he swiftly mounted the steps to his porch. Poor old lady. He would make +amends for his discourtesy when he was quite himself again. She should some day +hear, perhaps, his infinitely tragic, infinitely comic experience from his own +lips. He would take her some flowers, some old keepsake of his mother’s. What +would he not do when the old moods and brains of the stupid Arthur Lawford, +whom he had appreciated so little and so superficially, came back to him. +</p> + +<p> +He ran up the steps and stopped dead, his hand in his pocket, chilled and +aghast. Sheila had taken his keys. He stood there, dazed and still, beneath the +dim yellow of his own fanlight; and once again that inward spring flew back. +‘Brazen it out; brazen it out! Knock and ring!’ +</p> + +<p> +He knocked flamboyantly, and rang. +</p> + +<p> +There came a quiet step and the door opened. ‘Dr Simon, of course, has called?’ +he inquired suavely. +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes, sir.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Ah, and gone’—as I feared. And Mrs Lawford?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I think Mrs Lawford is in, sir.’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford put out a detaining hand. ‘We will not disturb her; we will not disturb +her. I can find my way up; oh yes, thank you!’ +</p> + +<p> +But Ada still palely barred the way. ‘I think, sir,’ she said, ‘Mrs Lawford +would prefer to see you herself; she told me most particularly “all callers.” +And Mr Lawford was not to be disturbed on any account.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Disturbed? God forbid!’ said Lawford, but his dark eyes failed to move these +lightest hazel. ‘Well,’ he continued nonchalantly, ‘perhaps—perhaps +it—<i>would</i> be as well if Mrs Lawford should know that I am here. No, thank +you, I won’t come in. Please go and tell—’ But even as the maid turned to obey, +Sheila herself appeared at the dining-room door in hat and veil. +</p> + +<p> +Lawford hesitated an immeasurable moment. In one swift glance he perceived the +lamplit mystery of evening, beckoning, calling, pleading—Fly, fly! Home’s here +for you. Begin again, begin again. And there before him in quiet and hostile +decorum stood maid and mistress. He took off his hat and stepped quickly in. +</p> + +<p> +‘So late, so very late, I fear,’ he began glibly. ‘A sudden call, a perfectly +impossible distance. Shall we disturb him, do you think?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Wouldn’t it,’ began Sheila softly, ‘be rather a pity perhaps? Dr Simon seemed +to think.... But, of course, you must decide that.’ +</p> + +<p> +Ada turned quiet small eyes. +</p> + +<p> +‘No, no, by no means,’ he almost mumbled. +</p> + +<p> +And a hard, slow smile passed over Sheila’s face. ‘Excuse me one moment,’ she +said; ‘I will see if he is awake.’ She swept swiftly forward, superb and +triumphant, beneath the gaze of those dark, restless eyes. But so still was +home and street that quite distinctly a clear and youthful laughter was heard, +and light footsteps approaching. Sheila paused. Ada, in the act of closing the +door, peered out. ‘Miss Alice, ma’am,’ she said. +</p> + +<p> +And in this infinitesimal advantage of time Dr Ferguson had seized his +vanishing opportunity, and was already swiftly mounting the stairs. Mrs Lawford +stood with veil half raised and coldly smiling lips and, as if it were by +pre-arrangement, her daughter’s laughing greeting from the garden, and from the +landing above her, a faint ‘Ah, and how are we now?’ broke out simultaneously. +And Ada, silent and discreet, had thrown open the door again to the twilight +and to the young people ascending the steps. +</p> + +<p> +Lawford was still sitting on his bed before a cold and ashy hearth when Sheila +knocked at the door. +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes?’ he said; ‘who’s there?’ No answer followed. He rose with a shuddering +sigh and turned the key. His wife entered. +</p> + +<p> +‘That little exhibition of finesse was part of our agreement, I suppose?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I say—’ began Lawford. +</p> + +<p> +‘To creep out in my absence like a thief, and to return like a mountebank; that +was part of our compact?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I say,’ he stubbornly began again, ‘did you <i>wire</i> for Alice?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Will you please answer my question? Am I to be a mere catspaw in your +intrigues, in this miserable masquerade before the servants? To set the whole +place ringing with the name of a doctor that doesn’t exist, and a bedridden +patient that slips out of the house with his bedroom key in his pocket! Are you +aware that Ada has been hammering at your door every half-hour of your absence? +Are you aware of that? How much,’ she continued in a low, bitter voice, ‘how +much should I offer for her discretion?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Who was that with Alice?’ inquired the same toneless voice. +</p> + +<p> +‘I refuse to be ignored. I refuse to be made a child of. Will you please answer +me?’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford turned. ‘Look here, Sheila,’ he began heavily, ‘what about Alice? If +you wired: well, it’s useless to say anything more. But if you didn’t, I ask +you just this one thing. Don’t tell her!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Oh, I perfectly appreciate a father’s natural anxiety.’ +</p> + +<p> +Her husband drew up his shoulders as if to receive a blow. ‘Yes, yes,’ he said, +‘but you won’t?’ +</p> + +<p> +The sound of a young laughing voice came faintly up from below. ‘How did Jimmie +Fortescue know she was coming home to-day?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Will you not inquire of Jimmie Fortescue for yourself?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Oh, what is the use of sneering?’ began the dull voice again. ‘I am horribly +tired, Sheila. And try how you will, you can’t convince me that you believe for +a moment that I am not myself, that you are as hard as you pretend. An +acquaintance, even a friend might be deceived; but husband and wife—oh no! It +isn’t only a man’s face that’s himself—or even his hands.’ He looked at them, +straightened them slowly out, and buried them in his pockets. ‘All I care about +now is Alice. Is she, or is she not going to be told? I am simply asking you to +give her just a chance.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘“Simply asking me to give Alice a chance”; now isn’t that really just a +little...?’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford slowly shook his head. ‘You know in your heart it isn’t, Sheila; you +understand me quite well, although you persistently pretend not to. I can’t +argue now. I can’t speak up for myself. I am just about as far down as I can +go. It’s only Alice.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I see; a lucid interval?’ suggested his wife in a low, trembling voice. +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes, yes, if you like,’ said her husband patiently, ‘“a lucid interval.” Don’t +please look at my face like that, Sheila. Think—think that it’s just lupus, +just some horrible disfigurement.’ +</p> + +<p> +Not much light was in the large room, and there was something so +extraordinarily characteristic of her husband in those stooping shoulders, in +the head hung a little forward, and in the preternaturally solemn voice, that +Sheila had to bend a little over the bed to catch a glimpse of the sallow and +keener face again. She sighed; and even on her own strained ear her sigh +sounded almost like one of relief. +</p> + +<p> +‘It’s useless, I know, to ask you anything while you are in this mood,’ +continued Lawford dully; ‘I know that of old.’ +</p> + +<p> +The white, ringed hands clenched, ‘“Of old!”’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I didn’t mean anything. Don’t listen to what I say. It’s only—it’s just Alice +knowing, that was all; I mean at once.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Don’t for a moment suppose I am not perfectly aware that it is only Alice you +think of. You were particularly anxious about my feelings, weren’t you? You +broke the news to me with the tenderest solicitude. I am glad our—our daughter +shares my husband’s love.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Look here,’ said Lawford densely, ‘you know that I love you as much as ever; +but with this—as I am; what would be the good of my saying so?’ Mrs Lawford +took a deep breath. +</p> + +<p> +And a voice called softly at the door, ‘Mother, are you there? Is father awake? +May I come in?’ +</p> + +<p> +In a flash the memory returned to her; twenty-four hours ago she was asking +that very question of this unspeakable figure that sat hunched-up before her. +</p> + +<p> +‘One moment, dear,’ she called. And added in a very low voice, ‘Come here!’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford looked up. ‘What?’ he said. +</p> + +<p> +‘Perhaps, perhaps,’ she whispered, ‘it isn’t quite so bad.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘For mercy’s sake, Sheila,’ he said, ‘don’t torture me; tell the poor child to +go away.’ +</p> + +<p> +She paused. ‘Are you there, Alice? Would you mind, father says, waiting a +little? He is so very tired.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Too tired to.... Oh, very well, mother.’ +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Lawford opened the door, and called after her, ‘Is Jimmie gone?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Oh, yes, hours.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Where did you meet?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I couldn’t get a carriage at the station. He carried my dressing-bag; I begged +him not to. The other’s coming on. You know what Jimmie is. How very, very +lucky I <i>did</i> come home. I don’t know what made me; just an impulse; they +did laugh at me so. Father dear—do speak to me; how are you now?’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford opened his mouth, gulped, and shook his head. +</p> + +<p> +‘Ssh, dear!’ whispered Sheila, ‘I think he has fallen asleep. I will be down in +a minute.’ Mrs Lawford was about to close the door when Ada appeared. +</p> + +<p> +‘If you please, ma’am,’ she said, ‘I have been waiting, as you told me, to let +Dr Ferguson out, but it’s nearly seven now; and the table’s not laid yet.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I really should have thought, Ada,’ Sheila began, then caught back the angry +words, and turned and looked over her shoulder into the room. ‘Do you think you +will need anything more, Dr Ferguson?’ she asked in a sepulchral voice. +</p> + +<p> +Again Lawford’s lips moved; again he shook his head. +</p> + +<p> +‘One moment, Ada,’ she said closing the door. ‘Some more medicine—what +medicine? Quick! She mustn’t suspect.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘“What medicine?”’ repeated Lawford stolidly. +</p> + +<p> +‘Oh, vexing, vexing; don’t you <i>see</i> we must send her out? Don’t you see? +What was it you sent to Critchett’s for last night? Tell him that’s gone: we +want more of <i>that</i>.’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford stared heavily. Oh, yes, yes,’ he said thickly, ‘more of that....’ +</p> + +<p> +Sheila, with a shrug of extreme distaste and vexation, hastily opened the door. +‘Dr Ferguson wants a further supply of the drug which Mr Critchett made up for +Mr Lawford yesterday evening. You had better go at once, Ada, and please make +as much haste as you possibly can.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I say, I say,’ began Lawford; but it was too late, the door was shut. +</p> + +<p> +‘How I detest this wretched falsehood and subterfuge. What could have induced +you....?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes,’ said her husband, ‘what! I think I’ll be getting to bed again, Sheila; I +forgot I had been ill. And now I do really feel very tired. But I should like +to feel—in spite of this hideous—I should like to feel we are friends, Sheila.’ +</p> + +<p> +Sheila almost imperceptibly shuddered, crossed the room, and faced the still, +almost lifeless mask. ‘I spoke,’ she said, in a low, cold, difficult voice—‘I +spoke in a temper this morning. You must try to understand what a shock it has +been to me. Now, I own it frankly, I know you are—Arthur. But God only knows +how it frightens me, and—and—horrifies me.’ She shut her eyes beneath her veil. +They waited on in silence a while. +</p> + +<p> +‘Poor boy!’ she said at last, lightly touching the loose sleeve; ‘be brave; it +will all come right, soon. Meanwhile, for Alice’s sake, if not for mine, don’t +give way to—to caprices, and all that. Keep quietly here, Arthur. And—and +forgive my impatience.’ +</p> + +<p> +He put out his hand as if to touch her. ‘Forgive you!’ he said humbly, pushing +it stubbornly back into his pocket again. ‘Oh, Sheila, the forgiveness is all +on your side. You know <i>I</i> have nothing to forgive.’ A long silence fell +between them. +</p> + +<p> +‘Then, to-night,’ at last began Sheila wearily, drawing back, ‘we say nothing +to Alice, except that you are too tired—just nervous prostration—to see her. +What we should do without this influenza, I cannot conceive. Mr Bethany will +probably look in on his way home; and then we can talk it over—we can talk it +over again. So long as you are like this, yourself, in mind, why I—What is it +now?’ she broke off querulously. +</p> + +<p> +‘If you please, ma’am, Mr Critchett says he doesn’t know Dr Ferguson, his +name’s not in the Directory, and there must be something wrong with the +message, and he’s sorry, but he must have it in writing because there was more +even in the first packet than he ought by rights to send. What shall I do, if +you please?’ +</p> + +<p> +Still looking at her husband. Sheila listened quietly to the end, and then, as +if in inarticulate disdain, she deliberately shrugged her shoulders, and went +out to play her part unaided. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap07"></a> +CHAPTER SEVEN</h2> + +<p> +Her husband turned wearily once more, and drawing up a chair sat down in front +of the cold grate. He realised that Sheila thought him as much of a fool now as +she had for the moment thought him an impostor, or something worse, the night +before. That was at least something gained. He realised, too, in a vague way +that the exuberance of mind that had practically invented Dr Ferguson, and +outraged Miss Sinnet, had quite suddenly flickered out. It was astonishing, he +thought, with gaze fixed innocently on the black coals, that he should ever +have done such things. He detested that kind of ‘rot’; that jaunty theatrical +pose so many men prided their jackdaw brains on. +</p> + +<p> +And he sat quite still, like a cat at a cranny, listening, as it were, for the +faintest remotest stir that might hint at any return of this—activity. It was +the first really sane moment he had had since the ‘change.’ Whatever it was +that had happened at Widderstone was now distinctly weakening in effect. Why, +now, perhaps? He stole a thievish look over his shoulder at the glass, and +cautiously drew finger and thumb down that beaked nose. Then he really quietly +smiled, a smile he felt this abominable facial caricature was quite unused to, +the superior Lawford smile of guileless contempt for the fanatical, the +fantastic, and the bizarre: <i>He</i> wouldn’t have sat with his feet on the +fender before a burnt-out fire. +</p> + +<p> +And the animosity of that ‘he,’ uttered only just under his breath, surprised +even himself. It actually did seem as if there were a chance; if only he kept +cool and collected. If the whole mind of a man was bent on being one thing, +surely no power on earth, certainly not on earth, could for long compel him to +look another, any more (followed the resplendent thought) than vice versa. +</p> + +<p> +That, in fact, was the trick that had been in fitful fashion played him since +yesterday. Obviously, and apart altogether from his promise to Sheila, the best +possible thing he could do would be to walk quietly over to Widderstone +to-morrow and like a child that has lost a penny, just make the attempt to +reverse the process: look at the graves, read the inscriptions on the +weather-beaten stones, compose himself once more to sleep on the little seat. +</p> + +<p> +Magic, witchcraft, possession, and all that—well, Mr Bethany might prefer to +take it on the authority of the Bible if it was his duty. But it was at least +mainly Old Testament stuff, like polygamy, Joshua, and the ‘unclean beasts.’ +The ‘unclean beasts.’ It was simply, as Simon had said, mainly an affair of the +nerves, like Indian jugglery. He had heard of dozens of such cases, or similar +cases. And it was hardly likely that cases even remotely like his own would be +much bragged about, or advertised. All those mysterious ‘disappearances,’ too, +which one reads about so repeatedly? What of them? Even now, he felt (and +glanced swiftly behind him at the fancy), it would be better to think as softly +as possible, not to hope too openly, certainly not to triumph in the least +degree, just in case of—well—listeners. +</p> + +<p> +He would wrap up too. And he wouldn’t tell Sheila of the project till he had +come safely back. What an excellent joke it would be to confess meekly to his +escapade, and to be scolded, and then suddenly to reveal himself. He sat back +and gazed with an almost malignant animosity at the face in the portrait, +comely and plump. +</p> + +<p> +An inarticulate, unfathomable depression rolled back on him, like a mist out of +the sea. He hastily undressed, put watch and door-key and Critchett’s powder +under his pillow, paused, vacantly ruminated, and then replaced the powder in +his waistcoat pocket, said his prayers, and got shivering to bed. He did not +feel hurt at Sheila’s leaving him like this. So long as she really believed in +him. And now—Alice was home. He listened, trying not to shiver, for her voice; +and sometimes heard, he fancied, the clear note. It was this beastly influenza +that made him feel so cold and lifeless. But all would soon come right—that is, +if only that face, luminous against the floating darkness within, would not +appear the instant he closed his eyes. +</p> + +<p> +But legions of dreams are Influenza’s allies. He fell into a chill doze, heard +voices innumerable, and one above the rest, shouting them down, until there +fell a lull. And another, as it were, from afar said quite clearly and +distinctly, ‘But surely, my dear, you have heard the story of the poor old +charwoman who talked Greek in her delirium? A little school French need not +alarm us.’ And Lawford opened his eyes again on Mr Bethany standing at his bed. +</p> + +<p> +‘Tt, tt! There, I’ve been and waked him. And yet they say men make such +excellent nurses in time of war. But you see, Lawford, what did I tell you? +Wasn’t I now an infallible prophet? Your wife has been giving me a most glowing +account. Quite your old self, she tells me, except for just this—this touch of +facial paralysis. And I think, do you know’ (the kind old creature stooped over +the bed, but still, Lawford noticed bitterly, still without his +spectacles)—‘yes, I really think there is a decided improvement. Not quite +so—drawn. We must make haste slowly. Wedderburn, you know, believes profoundly +in Simon; he pulled his wife through a dangerous confinement. And here’s pills +and tonics and liniments—a whole chemist’s shop. Oh, we are getting on +swimmingly.’ +</p> + +<p> +Flamelight was flickering in the candled dusk. Lawford turned his head and saw +Sheila’s coiled, beautiful hair in the firelight. +</p> + +<p> +‘You haven’t told Alice?’ he asked. +</p> + +<p> +‘My dear good man,’ said Mr Bethany, ‘of course we haven’t. You shall tell her +yourself on Monday. What an incredible tradition it will be! But you mustn’t +worry; you mustn’t even think. And no more of these jaunts, eh? That Ferguson +business—that was too bad. What are we going to do with the fellow now we have +created him? He will come home to roost—mark my words. And as likely as not +down the Vicarage chimney. I wouldn’t have believed it of you, my dear fellow.’ +He beamed, but looked, none the less, very lean and fagged and depressed. +</p> + +<p> +‘How did the wedding go off?’ Lawford managed to think of inquiring. +</p> + +<p> +‘Oh, A1,’ said Mr Bethany. ‘I’ve just been describing it to Alice—the bride, +her bridegroom, mother, aunts, cake, presents, finery, blushes, tears, and +everything that was hers. We’ve been in fits, haven’t we, Mrs Lawford? And +Alice says I’m a Worth in a clerical collar—didn’t she? And that it’s only Art +that has kept me out of an apron. Now look here; quiet, quiet, quiet; no +excitement, no pranks. What is there to worry about, pray? And now Little +Dorrit’s down with influenza too. And Craik and I will have double work to do. +Well, well; good-bye, my dear. God bless you, Lawford. I can’t tell you how +relieved, how unspeakably relieved I am to find you so much—so much better. +Feed him up, my other dear; body and mind and soul and spirit. And there goes +the bell. I must have a biscuit. I’ve swallowed nothing but a Cupid in plaster +of Paris since breakfast. Goodnight; we shall miss you both—both.’ +</p> + +<p> +But when Sheila returned, her husband was sunk again into a quiet sleep, from +which not even the many questions she fretted to put to him seemed weighty +enough to warrant his disturbance. +</p> + +<p> +So when Lawford again opened his eyes he found himself lying wide awake, clear +and refreshed, and eager to get up. But upon the air lay the still hush of +early morning. He tried in vain to catch back sleep again. A distant shred of +dream still floated in his mind, like a cloud at evening. He rarely dreamed, +but certainly something immensely interesting had but a moment ago eluded him. +He sat up and looked at the clear red cinders and their maze of grottoes. He +got out of bed and peeped through the blinds. To the east and opposite to him +gardens and an apple-orchard lay, and there in strange liquid tranquillity hung +the morning star, and rose, rifling into the dusk of night, the first grey of +dawn. The street beneath its autumn leaves was vacant, charmed, deserted. +</p> + +<p> +Hardly since childhood had Lawford seen the dawn unless over his winter +breakfast-table. Very much like a child now he stood gazing out of his +bow-window—the child whom Time’s busy robins had long ago covered over with the +leaves of numberless hours. A vague exultation fumed up into his brain. Still +on the borders of sleep, he unlocked the great wardrobe and took out an old +faded purple and crimson dressing-gown that had belonged to his grandfather, +the chief glory of every Christmas charade. He pulled the cowl-like hood over +his head and strode majestically over to the looking-glass. +</p> + +<p> +He looked in there a moment on the strange face, like a child dismayed at its +own excitement, and a fit of sobbing that was half uncontrollable laughter +swept over him. He threw off the hood and turned once more to the window. +Consciousness had flooded back indeed. What would Sheila have said to see him +there? The unearthly beauty and stillness, and man’s small labours, garden and +wall and roof-tree idle and smokeless in the light of daybreak—there seemed to +be some half-told secret between them. What had life done with him to leave a +reality so clouded? He put on his slippers, and, gently opening the door, crept +with extreme caution up the stairs. At a long, narrow landing window he +confronted a panorama of starry night-gardens, sloping orchards; and beyond +them fields, hills, Orion, the Dogs, in the clear and cloudless darkness. +</p> + +<p> +‘My God, how beautiful!’ a voice whispered. And a cock crowed mistily afar. He +stood staring like a child into the wintry brightness of a pastry-cook’s. Then +once more he crept stealthily on. He stooped and listened at a closed door, +until he fancied that above the beating of his own heart he could hear the +breathing of the sleeper within. Then, taking firm hold of the handle with both +hands, he slowly noiselessly turned it, and peeped in on Alice. +</p> + +<p> +The moon was long past her faint shining here. The blind was down. And yet it +was not pitch dark. He stood with eyes fixed, waiting. Then he edged softly +forward and knelt down beside the bed. He could hear her breathing now: long, +low, quiet, unhastening—the miracle of life. He could just dimly discern the +darkness of her hair against the pillow. Some long-sealed spring of tenderness +seemed to rise in his heart with a grief and an ache he had never known before. +Here at least he could find a little peace, a brief pause, however futile and +stupid all his hopes of the night had been. He leant his head on his hands on +the counterpane and refused to think. He felt a quick tremor, a startled +movement, and knew that eyes wide open with fear were striving to pierce the +gloom between them. +</p> + +<p> +‘There, there, dearest,’ he said in a low whisper, ‘it’s only me, only me.’ He +stroked the narrow hand and gazed into the shadowiness. Her fingers lay quiet +and passive in his, with that strange sense of immateriality that sleep brings +to the body. +</p> + +<p> +‘You, you!’ she answered with a deep sigh. ‘Oh, dearest, how you frightened me. +What is wrong? why have you come? Are you worse, dearest, dearest?’ +</p> + +<p> +He kissed her hand. ‘No, Alice, not worse. I couldn’t sleep, that was all.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Oh, and I came so utterly miserable to bed because you would not see me. And +Mother would tell me only so very little. I didn’t even know you had been ill.’ +She pressed his hand between her own. ‘But this, you know, is very, very +naughty—you will catch cold, you bad thing. What <i>would</i> Mother say?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I think we mustn’t tell her, dear. I couldn’t help it; I felt much I wanted to +see you. I have been rather miserable.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Why?’ she said, stroking his hand from wrist to fingertips with one soft +finger. ‘You mustn’t be miserable. You and me have never done such a thing +before; have we? Was it that wretched old Flu?’ +</p> + +<p> +It was too dark in the little fragrant room even to see her face so close to +his own. And yet he feared. ‘Dr Simon,’ she went on softly, ‘said it was. But +isn’t your voice a little hoarse, and it sounds so melancholy in the dark. And +oh’—she squeezed his wrist—‘you have grown so thin! You do frighten me. +Whatever should I do if you were really ill? And it was so odd, dear. When +first I woke I seemed to be still straining my eyes in a dream, at such a +curious, haunting face—not very nice. I am glad, I am glad you were here.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘What was the dream-face like?’ came the muttered question. +</p> + +<p> +‘Dark and sharp, and rather dwelling eyes; you know those long faces one sees +in dreams: like a hawk, like a conjuror’s.’ +</p> + +<p> +Like a conjuror’s!—it was the first unguarded and ungarbled criticism. +‘Perhaps, dear, if you find my voice different, and my hand shrunk up, you will +find my face changed, too—like a conjuror’s.... What then?’ +</p> + +<p> +She laughed gaily and tenderly. ‘You silly silly; I should love you more than +ever. Your hands are icy cold. I can’t warm them nohow.’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford held tight his daughter’s hand. ‘You do love me, Alice? You would not +turn against me, whatever happened? Ah, you shall see, you shall see.’ A sudden +burning hope sprang up in him. Surely when all was well again, these last few +hours would not have been spent in vain. Like the shadow of death they had +been, against whose darkness the green familiar earth seems beautiful as the +plains of paradise. Had he but realized before how much he loved her—what years +of life had been wasted in leaving it all unsaid! He came back from his reverie +to find his hand wet with her tears. He stroked her hair, and touched gently +her eyelids without speaking. +</p> + +<p> +‘You will let me come in to-morrow?’ she pleaded; ‘you won’t keep me out?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Ah, but, dear, you must remember your mother. She gets so anxious, and every +word the doctor says is law. How would you like me to come again like this, +perhaps?—like Santa Claus?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘You know how I love having you,’ she said, and stopped. ‘But—but...’ He leaned +closer. ‘Yes, yes, come,’ she said, clutching his hand and hiding her eyes; ‘it +is only my dream—that horrible, dwelling face in the dream; it frightened me +so.’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford rose very slowly from his knees. He could feel in the dark his brows +drawn down; there came a low, sullen beating on his ear; he saw his face as it +were in dim outline against the dark. Rage and rebellion surged up in him; even +his love could be turned to bitterness. Well, two could play at any game! Alice +sprang up in bed and caught his sleeve. ‘Dearest, dearest, you must not be +angry with me now!’ +</p> + +<p> +He flung himself down beside the bed. Anger, resentment died away. ‘You are all +I have left,’ he said. +</p> + +<p> +He stole back, as he had come, in the clear dawn to his bedroom. +</p> + +<p> +It was not five yet. He put a few more coals on his fire and blew out the +night-light, and lay down. But it was impossible to rest, to remain inactive. +He would go down and search for that first volume of Quain. Hallucination, +Influenza, Insanity—why, Sheila must have purposely mislaid it. A rather +formidable figure he looked, descending the stairs in the grey dusk of +daybreak. The breakfast-room was at the back of the house. He tilted the blind, +and a faint light flowed in from the changing colours of the sky. He opened the +glass door of the little bookcase to the right of the window, and ran eye and +finger over the few rows of books. But as he stood there with his back to the +room, just as the shadow of a bird’s wing floats across the moonlight of a +pool, he became suddenly conscious that something, somebody had passed across +the doorway, and in passing had looked in on him. +</p> + +<p> +He stood motionless, listening; but no sound broke the morning slumbrousness, +except the faraway warbling of a thrush in the first light. So sudden and +transitory had been the experience that it seemed now to be illusory; yet it +had so caught him up, it had with so furtive and sinister a quietness broken in +on his solitude, that for a moment he dared not move. A cold, indefinite +sensation stole over him that he was being watched; that some dim, evil +presence was behind him biding its time, patient and stealthy, with eyes fixed +unmovingly on him where he stood. But, watch and wait as silently as he might, +only the day broadened at the window, and at last a narrow ray of sunlight +stole trembling up into the dusky bowl of the sky. +</p> + +<p> +At any rate Quain was found, with all the ills of life, from A to I; and +Lawford turned back to his bondage with the book under his arm. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap08"></a> +CHAPTER EIGHT</h2> + +<p> +The Sabbath, pale with September sunshine, and monotonous with chiming bells, +had passed languidly away. Dr Simon had come and gone, optimistic and urbane, +yet with a faint inward dissatisfaction over a patient behind whose taciturnity +a hint of mockery and subterfuge seemed to lurk. Even Mrs Lawford had appeared +to share her husband’s reticence. But Dr Simon had happened on other cases in +his experience where tact was required rather than skill, and time than +medicine. +</p> + +<p> +The voices and footsteps, even the <i lang="fr">frou-frou</i> of worshippers +going to church, the voices and footsteps of worshippers returning from church, +had floated up to the patient’s open window. Sunlight had drawn across his room +in one pale beam, and vanished. A few callers had called. Hothouse flowers, +waxen and pale, had been left with messages of sympathy. Even Dr Critchett had +respectfully and discreetly made inquiries on his way home from chapel. +</p> + +<p> +Lawford had spent most of his time in pacing to and fro in his soft slippers. +The very monotony had eased his mind. Now and again he had lain motionless, +with his face to the ceiling. He had dozed and had awakened, cold and torpid +with dream. He had hardly been aware of the process, but every hour had done +something, it seemed, towards clarifying his point of view. A consciousness had +begun to stir in him that was neither that of the old, easy Lawford, whom he +had never been fully aware of before, nor of this strange ghostly intelligence +that haunted the hawklike, restless face, and plucked so insistently at his +distracted nerves. He had begun in a vague fashion to be aware of them both, +could in a fashion discriminate between them, almost as if there really were +two spirits in stubborn conflict within him. It would, of course, wear him down +in time. There could be only one end to such a struggle—<i>the</i> end. +</p> + +<p> +All day he had longed for freedom, on and on, with craving for the open sky, +for solitude, for green silence, beyond these maddening walls. This heedful +silken coming and going, these Sunday voices, this reiterant yelp of a single +peevish bell—would they never cease? And above all, betwixt dread and an almost +physical greed, he hungered for night. He sat down with elbows on knees and +head on his hands, thinking of night, its secrecy, its immeasurable solitude. +</p> + +<p> +His eyelids twitched; the fire before him had for an instant gone black out. He +seemed to see slow-gesturing branches, grass stooping beneath a grey and +wind-swept sky. He started up; and the remembrance of the morning returned to +him—the glassy light, the changing rays, the beaming gilt upon the useless +books. Now, at last, at the windows; afternoon had begun to wane. And when +Sheila brought up his tea, as if Chance had heard his cry, she entered in hat +and stole. She put down the tray, and paused at the glass, looking across it +out of the window. +</p> + +<p> +‘Alice says you are to eat every one of those delicious sandwiches, and +especially the tiny omelette. You have scarcely touched anything to-day, +Arthur. I am a poor one to preach, I am afraid; but you know what that will +mean—a worse breakdown still. You really must try to think of—of us all.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Are you going to church?’ he asked in a low voice. +</p> + +<p> +‘Not, of course, if you would prefer not. But Dr Simon advised me most +particularly to go out at least once a day. We must remember, this is not the +beginning of your illness. Long-continued anxiety, I suppose, does tell on one +in time. Anyhow, he said that I looked worried and run-down. I <i>am</i> +worried. Let us both try for each other’s sakes, or even if only for Alice’s, +to—to do all we can. I must not harass you; but is there any—do you see the +slightest change of any kind?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘You always look pretty, Sheila; to-night you look prettier: <i>that</i> is the +only change, I think.’ +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Lawford’s attitude intensified in its stillness. ‘Now, speaking quite +frankly, what is it in you suggests these remarks at such a time? That’s what +baffles me. It seems so childish, so needlessly blind.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I am very sorry, Sheila, to be so childish. But I’m not, say what you like, +blind. You <i>are</i> pretty: I’d repeat it if I was burning at the stake.’ +</p> + +<p> +Sheila lowered her eyes softly on to the rich-toned picture in the glass. +‘Supposing,’ she said, watching her lips move, ‘supposing—of course, I know you +are getting better and all that—but supposing you don’t change back as Mr +Bethany thinks, what will you do? Honestly, Arthur, when I think over it +calmly, the whole tragedy comes back on me with such a force it sweeps me off +my feet; I am for the moment scarcely my own mistress. What would you do?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I think, Sheila,’ replied a low, infinitely weary voice, ‘I think I should +marry again.’ It was the same wavering, faintly ironical voice that had +slightly discomposed Dr Simon that same morning. +</p> + +<p> +‘“Marry again”!’ exclaimed incredulously the full lips in the looking-glass. +‘Who?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘<i>You</i>, dear!’ +</p> + +<p> +Sheila turned softly round, conscious in a most humiliating manner that she had +ever so little flushed. +</p> + +<p> +Her husband was pouring out his tea, unaware, apparently, of her change of +position. She watched him curiously. In spite of all her reason, of her +absolute certainty, she wondered even again for a moment if this really could +be Arthur. And for the first time she realised the power and mastery of that +eager and far too hungry face. Her mind seemed to pause, fluttering in air, +like a bird in the wind. She hastened rather unsteadily to the door. +</p> + +<p> +‘Will you want anything more, do you think, for an hour?’ she asked. +</p> + +<p> +Her husband looked up over his little table. ‘Is Alice going with you?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Oh yes; poor child, she looks so pale and miserable. We are going to Mrs +Sherwin’s, and then on to Church. You will lock your door?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes, I will lock my door.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘And I do hope Arthur—nothing rash!’ +</p> + +<p> +A change, that seemed almost the effect of actual shadow, came over his face. +‘I wish you could stay with me,’ he said slowly. ‘I don’t think you have any +idea what—what I go through.’ +</p> + +<p> +It was as if a child had asked on the verge of terror for a candle in the dark. +But an hour’s terror is better than a lifetime of timidity. Sheila sighed. +</p> + +<p> +‘I think,’ she said, ‘I too might say that. But there; giving way will do +nothing for either of us. I shall be gone only for an hour, or two at the most. +And I told Mr Bethany I should have to come out before the sermon: it’s only Mr +Craik.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘But why Mrs Sherwin? She’d worm a secret out of one’s grave.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘It’s useless to discuss that, Arthur; you have always consistently disliked my +friends. It’s scarcely likely that you would find any improvement in them now.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Oh, well—’ he began. But the door was already closed. +</p> + +<p> +‘Sheila!’ he called in a burst of anger. +</p> + +<p> +‘Well, Arthur?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘You have taken my latchkey.’ +</p> + +<p> +Sheila came hastily in again. ‘Your latchkey?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I am going out.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘“Going out!”—you will not be so mad, so criminal; and after your promise!’ +</p> + +<p> +He stood up. ‘It is useless to argue. If I do not go out, I shall certainly go +mad. As for criminal—why, that’s a woman’s word. Who on earth is to know me?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘It is of no consequence, then, that the servants are already gossiping about +this impossible Dr Ferguson; that you are certain to be seen either going or +returning; that Alice is bound to discover that you are well enough to go out, +and yet not even enough to say good-night to your own daughter—oh, it’s +monstrous, it’s a frantic, a heartless thing to do!’ Her voice vaguely +suggested tears. +</p> + +<p> +Lawford eyed her coldly and stubbornly—thinking of the empty room he would +leave awaiting his return, its lamp burning, its fire-flames shining. It was +almost a physical discomfort, this longing unspeakable for the twilight, the +green secrecy and the silence of the graves. ‘Keep them out of the way,’ he +said in a low voice; ‘it will be dark when I come in.’ His hardened face lit +up. ‘It’s useless to attempt to dissuade me.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Why must you always be hurting me? why do you seem to delight in trying to +estrange me?’ Husband and wife faced each other across the clear-lit room. He +did not answer. +</p> + +<p> +‘For the last time,’ she said in a quiet, hard voice, ‘I ask you not to go.’ +</p> + +<p> +He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Ask me not to come back,’ he said; ‘that’s nearer +your hope.’ He turned his face to the fire. Without moving he heard her go out, +return, pause, and go out again. And when he deliberately wheeled round in his +chair the little key lay conspicuous there on the counterpane. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap09"></a> +CHAPTER NINE</h2> + +<p> +The last light of sunset lay in the west; and a sullen wrack of cloud was +mounting into the windless sky when Lawford entered the country graveyard again +by its dark weather-worn lych-gate. The old stone church with its square tower +stood amid trees, its eastern window faintly aglow with crimson and purple. He +could hear a steady, rather nasal voice through its open lattices. But the +stooping stones and the cypresses were out of sight of its porch. He would not +be seen down there. He paused a moment, however; his hat was drawn down over +his eyes; he was shivering. Far over the harvest fields showed a growing pallor +in the sky. He would have the moon to go home by. +</p> + +<p> +‘Home!’—these trees, this tongueless companionship, this heavy winelike air, +this soundless turf—these in some obscure desolate fashion seemed far rather +really home. His eyes wandered towards the fading crimson. And with that on his +right hand he began softly, almost on tiptoe, descending the hill. It seemed to +him that the steady eyes of the dead were watching him in his slow progress. +The air was echoing with little faint, clear calls. He turned and snapped his +fingers at a robin that was stalking him with its stony twittering from bush to +bush. +</p> + +<p> +But when after some little time he actually came out of the narrow avenue and +looked down, his heart misgave him, for some one was already sitting there on +his low and solitary seat beneath the cypresses. He stood hesitating, gazing +steadily and yet half vacantly at the motionless figure, and in a while a face +was lifted in his direction, and undisconcerted eyes calmly surveyed him. +</p> + +<p> +‘I am afraid,’ called Lawford rather nervously—‘I hope I am not intruding?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Not at all, not at all,’ said the stranger. ‘I have no privileges here; at +least as yet.’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford again hesitated, then slowly advanced. ‘It’s astonishingly quiet and +beautiful,’ he said. +</p> + +<p> +The stranger turned his head to glance over the fields. ‘Yes, it is, very,’ he +replied. There was the faintest accent, a little drawl of unfriendliness in the +remark. +</p> + +<p> +‘You often sit here?’ Lawford persisted. +</p> + +<p> +The stranger raised his eyebrows. ‘Oh yes, often.’ He smiled. ‘It is my own +modest fashion of attending divine service. The congregation is rapt.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘<i>My</i> visits,’ said Lawford, ‘have been very few—in fact, so far as I +know, I have only once been here before.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I envy you the novelty.’ There was again the same faint unmistakable +antagonism in voice and attitude; and yet so deep was the relief in talking to +a fellow creature who hadn’t the least suspicion of anything unusual in his +appearance that Lawford was extremely disinclined to turn back. He made another +effort—for conversation with strangers had always been a difficulty to him—and +advanced towards the seat. ‘You mustn’t please let me intrude upon you,’ he +said, ‘but really I am very interested in this queer old place. Perhaps you +would tell me something of its history?’ He sat down. His companion moved +slowly to the other side of the broken gravestone. +</p> + +<p> +‘To tell you the truth,’ he replied, picking his way as it were from word to +word, ‘it’s “history,” as people call it, does not interest me in the least. +After all, it’s not <i>when</i> a thing is, but <i>what</i> it is, that much +matters. What this is’—he glanced, with head bent, across the shadowy stones, +‘is pretty evident. Of course, age has its charms.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘And is this very old?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Oh yes, it’s old right enough, as things go; but even age, perhaps, is mainly +an affair of the imagination. There’s a tombstone near that little old +hawthorn, and there are two others side by side under the wall, still even +legibly late seventeenth century. That’s pretty good weathering.’ He smiled +faintly. ‘Of course, the church itself is centuries older, drenched with age. +But she’s still sleep-walking while these old tombstones dream. Glow-worms and +crickets are not such bad bedfellows.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘What interested me most, I think,’ said Lawford haltingly, ‘was this.’ He +pointed with his stick to the grave at his feet. +</p> + +<p> +‘Ah, yes, Sabathier’s,’ said the stranger; ‘I know his peculiar history almost +by heart.’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford found himself staring with unusual concentration into the rather long +and pale face. ‘Not, I suppose,’ he resumed faintly—‘not, I suppose, beyond +what’s there.’ +</p> + +<p> +His companion leant his hand on the old stooping tombstone. ‘Well, you know, +there’s a good deal there’—he stooped over—‘if you read between the lines. Even +if you don’t.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘A suicide,’ said Lawford, under his breath. +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes, a suicide; that’s why our Christian countrymen have buried him outside of +the fold. Dead or alive, they try to keep the wolf out.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Is this, then, unconsecrated ground?’ said Lawford. +</p> + +<p> +‘Haven’t you noticed,’ drawled the other, ‘how green the grass grows down here, +and how very sharp are poor old Sabathier’s thorns? Besides, he was a stranger, +and they—kept him out.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘But, surely,’ said Lawford, ‘was it so entirely a matter of choice—the laws of +the Church? If he did kill himself, he did.’ +</p> + +<p> +The stranger turned with a little shrug. ‘I don’t suppose it’s a matter of much +consequence to <i>him</i>. I fancied I was his only friend. May I venture to +ask why you are interested in the poor old thing?’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford’s mind was as calm and shallow as a millpond. ‘Oh, a rather unusual +thing happened to me here,’ he said. ‘You say you often come?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Often,’ said the stranger rather curtly. +</p> + +<p> +‘Has anything—ever—occurred?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘“Occurred?”’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘I wish it had. I come here simply, as I +have said, because it’s quiet; because I prefer the company of those who never +answer me back, and who do not so much as condescend to pay me the least +attention.’ He smiled and turned his face towards the quiet fields. +</p> + +<p> +Lawford, after a long pause, lifted his eyes. ‘Do you think,’ he said softly, +‘it is possible one ever could?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘“One ever could?”’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Answer back?’ +</p> + +<p> +There was a low rotting wall of stone encompassing Sabathier’s grave; on this +the stranger sat down. He glanced up rather curiously at his companion. ‘Seldom +the time and the place and the <i>revenant</i> altogether. The thought has +occurred to others,’ he ventured to add. +</p> + +<p> +‘Of course, of course,’ said Lawford eagerly. ‘But it is an absolutely new one +to me. I don’t mean that I have never had such an idea, just in one’s own +superficial way; but’—he paused and glanced swiftly into the fast-thickening +twilight—‘I wonder: are they, do you think, really, all quite dead?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Call and see!’ taunted the stranger softly. +</p> + +<p> +‘Ah, yes, I know,’ said Lawford. ‘But I believe in the resurrection of the +body; that is what we say; and supposing, when a man dies—supposing it was most +frightfully against one’s will; that one hated the awful inaction that death +brings, shutting a poor devil up like a child kicking against the door in a +dark cupboard; one might surely one might—just quietly, you know, try to get +out? wouldn’t you?’ he added. +</p> + +<p> +‘And, surely,’ he found himself beginning gently to argue again, ‘surely, what +about, say, him?’ He nodded towards the old and broken grave that lay between +them. +</p> + +<p> +‘What, Sabathier?’ the other echoed, laying his hand upon the stone. +</p> + +<p> +And a sheer enormous abyss of silence seemed to follow the unanswerable +question. +</p> + +<p> +‘He was a stranger; it says so. Good God!’ said Lawford, ‘how he must have +wanted to get home! He killed himself, poor wretch, think of the fret and fever +he must have been in—just before. Imagine it.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘But it might, you know,’ suggested the other with a smile—‘might have been +sheer indifference.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘“Nicholas Sabathier, Stranger to this parish”—no, no,’ said Lawford, his heart +beating as if it would choke him, ‘I don’t fancy it was indifference.’ +</p> + +<p> +It was almost too dark now to distinguish the stranger’s features but there +seemed a faint suggestion of irony in his voice. ‘And how do you suppose your +angry naughty child would set about it? It’s narrow quarters; how would he +begin?’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford sat quite still. ‘You say—I hope I am not detaining you—you say you +have come here, sat here often, on this very seat; have you ever had—have you +ever fallen asleep here?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Why do you ask?’ inquired the other curiously. +</p> + +<p> +‘I was only wondering,’ said Lawford. He was cold and shivering. He felt +instinctively it was madness to sit on here in the thin gliding mist that had +gathered in swathes above the grass, milk-pale in the rising moon. The stranger +turned away from him. +</p> + +<p> +‘“For in that sleep of death what dreams may come must give us pause,”’ he said +slowly, with a little satirical catch on the last word. ‘What did <i>you</i> +dream?’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford glanced helplessly about him. The moon cast lean grey beams of light +between the cypresses. But to his wide and wandering eyes it seemed that a +radiance other than hers haunted these mounds and leaning stones. ‘Have you +ever noticed it?’ he said, putting out his hand towards his unknown companion; +‘this stone is cracked from head to foot?... But there’—he rose stiff and +chilled—‘I am afraid I have bored you with my company. You came here for +solitude, and I have been trying to convince you that we are surrounded with +witnesses. You will forgive my intrusion?’ There was a kind of old-fashioned +courtesy in his manner that he himself was dimly aware of. He held out his +hand. +</p> + +<p> +‘I hope you will think nothing of the kind,’ said the other earnestly; ‘how +could it be in any sense an intrusion? It’s the old story of Bluebeard. And I +confess I too should very much like a peep into his cupboard. Who wouldn’t? But +there, it’s merely a matter of time, I suppose.’ He paused, and together they +slowly ascended the path already glimmering with a heavy dew. At the porch they +paused once more. And now it was the stranger that held out his hand. +</p> + +<p> +‘Perhaps,’ he said, ‘you will give me the pleasure of some day continuing our +talk. As for our friend below, it so happens that I <i>have</i> managed to pick +up a little more of his history than the sexton seems to have heard of—if you +would care some time or other to share it. I live only at the foot of the hill, +not half a mile distant. Perhaps you could spare the time now?’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford took out his watch, ‘You are really very kind,’ he said. ‘But, +perhaps—well, whatever that history may be, I think you would agree that mine +is even—but, there, I’ve talked too much about myself already. Perhaps +to-morrow?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Why, to-morrow, then,’ said his companion. ‘It’s a flat wooden house, on the +left-hand side. Come at any time of the evening’; he paused again and +smiled—‘the third house after the Rectory, which is marked up on the gate. My +name is Herbert—Herbert Herbert to be precise.’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford took out his pocket-book and a card. ‘Mine,’ he said, handing it +gravely to his companion. ‘is Lawford—at least...’ It was really the first time +that either had seen the other’s face at close quarters and clear-lit; and on +Lawford’s a moon almost at the full shone dazzlingly. He saw an +expression—dismay, incredulity, overwhelming astonishment—start suddenly into +the dark, rather indifferent eyes. +</p> + +<p> +‘What is it?’ he cried, hastily stooping close. +</p> + +<p> +‘Why,’ said the other, laughing and turning away, ‘I think the moon must have +bewitched me too.’ +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap10"></a> +CHAPTER TEN</h2> + +<p> +Lawford listened awhile before opening his door. He heard voices in the +dining-room. A light shone faintly between the blinds of his bedroom. He very +gently let himself in, and unheard, unseen, mounted the stairs. He sat down in +front of the fire, tired out and bitterly cold in spite of his long walk home. +But his mind was wearier even than his body. He tried in vain to catch up the +thread of his thoughts. He only knew for certain that so far as his first hope +and motives had gone his errand had proved entirely futile. ‘How could I +possibly fall asleep with that fellow talking there?’ he had said to himself +angrily; yet knew in his heart that their talk had driven every other idea out +of his mind. He had not yet even glanced into the glass. His every thought was +vainly wandering round and round the one curious hint that had drifted in, but +which he had not yet been able to put into words. +</p> + +<p> +Supposing, though, that he had really fallen into a deep sleep, with none to +watch or spy—what then? However ridiculous that idea, it was not more +ridiculous, more incredible than the actual fact. If he had remained there, he +might, it was just possible that he would by now, have actually awakened just +his own familiar every-day self again. And the thought of that—though he hardly +realised its full import—actually did send him on tip-toe for a glance that +more or less effectually set the question at rest. And there looked out at him, +it seemed, the same dark sallow face that had so much appalled him only two +nights ago—expressionless, cadaverous, with shadowy hollows beneath the +glittering eyes. And even as he watched it, its lips, of their own volition, +drew together and questioned him—‘Whose?’ +</p> + +<p> +He was not to be given much leisure, however, for fantastic reveries like this. +As he leaned his head on his hands, gladly conscious that he could not possibly +bear this incessant strain for long, Sheila opened the door. He started up. +</p> + +<p> +‘I wish you would knock,’ he said angrily; ‘you talk of quiet; you tell me to +rest, and think; and here you come creeping and spying on me as if I was a +child in a nursery. I refuse to be watched and guarded and peeped on like +this.’ He knew that his hands were trembling, that he could not keep his eyes +fixed, that his voice was nearly inarticulate. +</p> + +<p> +Sheila drew in her lips. ‘I have merely come to tell you, Arthur, that Mr +Bethany has brought Mr Danton in to supper. He agrees with me it really would +be advisable to take such a very old and prudent and practical friend into our +confidence. You do nothing I ask of you. I simply cannot bear the burden of +this incessant anxiety. Look, now, what your night walk has done for you! You +look positively at death’s door.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘What—what an instinct you have for the right word,’ said Lawford softly. ‘And +Danton, of all people in the world! It was surely rather a curious, a +thoughtless choice. Has he had supper?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Why do you ask?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘He won’t believe: too—bloated.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I think,’ said Sheila indignantly, ‘it is hardly fair to speak of a very old +and a very true friend of mine in such—well, vulgar terms as that. Besides, +Arthur, as for believing—without in the least desiring to hurt your feelings—I +must candidly warn you, some people won’t.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Come along,’ said Lawford, with a faint gust of laughter; ‘let’s see.’ +</p> + +<p> +They went quickly downstairs, Sheila with less dignity, perhaps, than she had +been surprised into since she had left a slimmer girlhood behind. She swept +into the gaze of the two gentlemen standing together on the hearthrug; and so +was caught, as it were, between a rain of conflicting glances, for her husband +had followed instantly, and stood now behind her, stooping a little, and with +something between contempt and defiance confronting an old fat friend, whom +that one brief challenging instant had congealed into a condition of passive +and immovable hostility. +</p> + +<p> +Mr Danton composed his chin in his collar, and deliberately turned himself +towards his companion. His small eyes wandered, and instantaneously met and +rested on those of Mrs Lawford. +</p> + +<p> +‘Arthur thought he would prefer to come down and see you himself.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘You take such formidable risks, Lawford,’ said Mr Bethany in a dry, difficult +voice. +</p> + +<p> +‘Am I really to believe,’ Danton began huskily. ‘I am sure, Bethany, you +will—My dear Mrs Lawford!’ said he, stirring vaguely, glancing restlessly. +</p> + +<p> +‘It was not my wish, Vicar, to come at all,’ said a voice from the doorway. ‘To +tell you the truth, I am too tired to care a jot either way. And’—he lifted a +long arm—‘I must positively refuse to produce the least, the remotest proof +that I am not, so far as I am personally aware, even the Man in the Moon. +Danton at heart was always an incorrigible sceptic. Aren’t you, T. D.? You +pride your dear old brawn on it in secret?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I really—’ began Danton in a rich still voice. +</p> + +<p> +‘Oh, but you know you are,’ drawled on the slightly hesitating long-drawn +syllables; ‘it’s your parochial <i lang="fr">métier</i>. Firm, unctuous, +subtle, scepticism; and to that end your body flourishes. You were born fat; +you became fat; and fat, my dear Danton, has been deliberately thrust on you—in +layers! Lampreys! You’ll perish of surfeit some day, of sheer Dantonism. And +fat, postmortem, Danton. Oh, what a basting’s there!’ +</p> + +<p> +Mr Bethany, with a convulsive effort, woke. He turned swiftly on Mrs Lawford. +‘Why, why, could you not have seen?’ he cried. +</p> + +<p> +‘It’s no good, Vicar. She’s all sheer Laodicean. Blow hot, blow cold. North, +south, east, west—to have a weathercock for a wife is to marry the wind. +There’s nothing to be got from poor Sheila but...’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Lawford!’ the little man’s voice was as sharp as the crack of a whip; ‘I +forbid it. Do you hear me? I forbid it. Some self-command; my dear good fellow, +remember, remember it’s only the will, the will that keeps us breathing.’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford peered as if out of a gathering dusk, that thickened and flickered with +shadows before his eyes. ‘What’s he mean, then,’ he muttered huskily, ‘coming +here with his black, still carcase—peeping, peeping—what’s he mean, I say?’ +There was a moment’s silence. Then with lifted brows and wide eyes that to +every one of his three witnesses left an indelible memory of clear and wolfish +light within their glassy pupils, he turned heavily, and climbed back to his +solitude. +</p> + +<p> +‘I suppose,’ began Danton, with an obvious effort to disentangle himself from +the humiliation of the moment, ‘I suppose he was—wandering?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Bless me, yes,’ said Mr Bethany cordially—‘fever. We all know what that +means.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes,’ said Danton, taking refuge in Mrs Lawford’s white and intent gaze. +</p> + +<p> +‘Just think, think, Danton—the awful, incessant strain of such an ordeal. Think +for an instant what such a thing <i>means</i>!’ +</p> + +<p> +Danton inserted a plump, white finger between collar and chin. ‘Oh yes. +But—eh?—needlessly abusive? I never <i>said</i> I disbelieved him.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Do you?’ said Mrs Lawford’s voice. +</p> + +<p> +He poised himself, as if it were, on the monolithic stability of his legs. +‘Eh?’ he said. +</p> + +<p> +Mr Bethany sat down at the table. ‘I rather feared some such temporary +breakdown as this, Danton. I think I foresaw it. And now, just while we are all +three alone here together in friendly conclave, wouldn’t it be as well, don’t +you think, to confront ourselves with the difficulties? I know—we all know, +that that poor half-demented creature <i>is</i> Arthur Lawford. This morning he +was as sane, as lucid as I hope I am now. An awful calamity has suddenly fallen +upon him—this change. I own frankly at the first sheer shock it staggered me as +I think for the moment it has staggered you. But when I had seen the poor +fellow face to face, heard him talk, and watched him there upstairs in the +silence stir and awake and come up again to his trouble out of his sleep. I had +no more doubt in my own mind and heart that he was he than I have in my mind +that I—am I. We do in some mysterious way, you’ll own at once, grow so +accustomed, so inured, if you like, to each other’s faces (masks though they +be) that we hardly realise we see them when we are speaking together. And yet +the slightest, the most infinitesimal change is instantly apparent.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Oh yes, Vicar; but you see—’ +</p> + +<p> +Mr Bethany raised a small lean hand: ‘One moment, please. I have heard +Lawford’s own account. Conscious or unconscious, he has been through some +terrific strain, some such awful conflict with the unseen powers that we—thank +God!—have only read about, and never perhaps, until death is upon us, shall +witness for ourselves. What more likely, more inevitable than that such a thing +should leave its scar, its cloud, its masking shadow?—call it what you will. A +smile can turn a face we dread into a face we’d die for. Some experience, which +would be nothing but a hideous cruelty and outrage to ask too closely +about—one, perhaps, which he could, even if he would, poor fellow, give no +account of—has put him temporarily at the world’s mercy. They made him a nine +days’ wonder, a byword. And that, my dear Danton, is just where we come in. We +know the man himself; and it is to be our privilege to act as a buffer-state, +to be intermediaries between him and the rest of this deadly, craving, sheepish +world—for the time being; oh yes, just for the time being. Other and keener and +more knowledgeable minds than mine or yours will some day bring him back to us +again. We don’t attempt to explain; we can’t. We simply believe.’ +</p> + +<p> +But Danton merely continued to stare, as if into the quiet of an aquarium. +</p> + +<p> +‘My dear good Danton,’ persisted Mr Bethany with cherubic patience, ‘how old +are you?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I don’t see quite...’ smiled Danton with recovered ease, and rapidly +mobilising forces. ‘Excuse the confidence, Mrs Lawford, I’m forty-three.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Good,’ said Mr Bethany; ‘and I’m seventy-one, and this child here’—he pointed +an accusing finger at Sheila—is youth perpetual. So,’ he briskly brightened, +‘say, between us we’re six score all told. Are we—can <i>we</i>, deliberately, +with this mere pinch of years at our command out of the wheeling millions that +have gone—can we say, “This is impossible,” to any single phenomenon? +<i>Can</i> we?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘No, we can’t, of course,’ said Danton formidably. ‘Not finally. That’s all +very well, but’—he paused, and nodded, nodding his round head upward as if +towards the inaudible overhead, ‘I suppose he can’t <i>hear?</i>’ +</p> + +<p> +Mr Bethany rose cheerfully. ‘All right, Danton; I am afraid you are exactly +what the poor fellow in his delirium solemnly asseverated. And, jesting apart, +it is in delirium that we tell our sheer, plain, unadulterated truth: you’re a +nicely covered sceptic. Personally, I refuse to discuss the matter. Mere dull, +stubborn prejudice; bigotry, if you like. I will only remark just this—that Mrs +Lawford and I, in our inmost hearts, <i>know</i>. You, my dear Danton, forgive +the freedom, merely incredulously grope. Faith versus Reason—that prehistoric +Armageddon. Some day, and a day not far distant either, Lawford will come back +to us. This—this shutter will be taken down as abruptly as by some +inconceivably drowsy heedlessness of common Nature it has been put up. He’ll +win through; and of his own sheer will and courage. But now, because I ask it, +and this poor child here entreats it, you will say nothing to a living soul +about the matter, say, till Friday? What step-by-step creatures we are, to be +sure! I say Friday because it will be exactly a week then. And what’s a +week?—to Nature scarcely the unfolding of a rose. But still, Friday be it. +Then, if nothing has occurred, we will, we shall <i>have</i> to call a friendly +gathering, we shall be compelled to have a friendly consultation.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I’m not, I hope, a brute, Bethany,’ said Danton apologetically; ‘but, +honestly, speaking for myself, simply as a man of the world, it’s a big risk to +be taking on—what shall we call it?—on mere intuition. Personally, and even in +a court of law—though Heaven forbid it ever reaches that stage—personally, I +could swear that the fellow that stood abusing me there, in that revolting +fashion, was not Lawford. It would be easier even to believe in him, if there +were not that—that glaze, that shocking simulation of the man himself, the very +man. But then, I am a sceptic; I own it. And ‘pon my word, Mrs Lawford, there’s +plenty of room for sceptics in a world like this.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Very well,’ said Mr Bethany crisply, ‘that’s settled, then. With your +permission, my dear,’ he added, turning untarnishably clear childlike eyes on +Sheila, ‘I will take all risks—even to the foot of the gibbet: accessory, +Danton, <i>after</i> the fact.’ And so direct and cloudless was his gaze that +Sheila tried in vain to evade it and to catch a glimpse of Danton’s small +agate-like eyes, now completely under mastery, and awaiting confidently the +meeting with her own. +</p> + +<p> +‘Of course,’ she said, ‘I am entirely in your hands, dear Mr Bethany.’ +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap11"></a> +CHAPTER ELEVEN</h2> + +<p> +Lawford slept far into the cloudy Monday morning, to wake steeped in sleep, +lethargic, and fretfully haunted by inconclusive remembrances of the night +before. When Sheila, with obvious and capacious composure, brought him his +breakfast tray, he watched her face for some time without speaking. +</p> + +<p> +‘Sheila,’ he began, as she was about to leave the room again. +</p> + +<p> +She paused, smiling. +</p> + +<p> +‘Did anything happen last night? Would you mind telling me, Sheila? Who was it +was here?’ +</p> + +<p> +Her lids the least bit narrowed. ‘Certainly, Arthur; Mr Danton was here.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Then it was not a dream?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Oh no,’ said Sheila. +</p> + +<p> +‘What did I say? What did <i>he</i> say? It was hopeless, anyhow.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I don’t quite understand what you mean by “hopeless,” Arthur. And must I +answer the other questions?’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford drew his hand over his face, like a tired child. ‘He didn’t—believe?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘No, dear,’ said Sheila softly. +</p> + +<p> +‘And you, Sheila?’ came the subdued voice. +</p> + +<p> +Sheila crossed slowly to the window. ‘Well, quite honestly, Arthur, I was not +very much surprised. Whatever we are agreed about on the whole, you were +scarcely yourself last night.’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford shut his eyes, and re-opened them full on his wife’s calm scrutiny, who +had in that moment turned in the light of the one drawn blind to face him +again. +</p> + +<p> +‘Who is? Always?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘No,’ said Sheila; ‘but—it was at least unfortunate. We can’t, I suppose, rely +on Dr Bethany alone.’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford crouched over his food. ‘Will he blab?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Blab! Mr Danton is a gentleman, Arthur.’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford rolled his eyes as if in temporary vertigo. ‘Yes,’ he said. And Sheila +once more prepared to make a reposeful exit. +</p> + +<p> +‘I don’t think I can see Simon this morning.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Oh. Who, then?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I mean I would prefer to be left alone.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Believe me, I had no intention to intrude.’ And this time the door really +closed. +</p> + +<p> +‘He is in a quiet, soothing sleep,’ said Sheila a few minutes later. +</p> + +<p> +‘Nothing could be better,’ said Dr Simon; and Lawford, to his inexpressible +relief, heard the fevered throbbing of the doctor’s car reverse, and turned +over and shut his eyes, dulled and exhausted in the still unfriendliness of the +vacant room. His spirits had sunk, he thought, to their lowest ebb. He scarcely +heeded the fragments of dreams—clear, green landscapes, amazing gleams of +peace, the sudden broken voices, the rustling and calling shadowiness of +subconsciousness—in this quiet sunlight of reality. The clouds had broken, or +had been withdrawn like a veil from the October skies. One thought alone was +his refuge; one face alone haunted him with its peace; one remembrance soothed +him—Alice. Through all his scattered and purposeless arguments he strove to +remember her voice, the loving-kindness of her eyes, her untroubled confidence. +</p> + +<p> +In the afternoon he got up and dressed himself. He could not bring himself to +stand before the glass and deliberately shave. He even smiled at the thought of +playing the barber to that lean chin. He dressed by the fireplace. +</p> + +<p> +‘I couldn’t rest,’ he told Sheila, when she presently came in on one of her +quiet, cautious, heedful visits; ‘and one tires of reading even Quain in bed.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Have you found anything?’ she inquired politely. +</p> + +<p> +‘Oh yes,’ said Lawford wearily; ‘I have discovered that infinitely worse things +are infinitely commoner. But that there’s nothing quite so picturesque.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Tell me,’ said Sheila, with refreshing naivete. ‘How does it feel? does it +even in the slightest degree affect your mind?’ +</p> + +<p> +He turned his back and looked up at his broad gilt portrait for inspiration. +‘Practically, not at all,’ he said hollowly. ‘Of course, one’s nerves—that +fellow Danton—when one’s overtired. You have’—his voice, in spite of every +effort, faintly quavered—‘<i>you</i> haven’t noticed anything? My mind?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Me? Oh dear, no! I never was the least bit observant; you know that, Arthur. +But apart from that, and I hope you will not think me unsympathetic—but don’t +you think we must sooner or later be thinking of what’s to be done? At present, +though I fully agree with Mr Bethany as to the wisdom of hushing this unhappy +business up as long as possible, at least from the gossiping outside world, +still we are only standing still. And your malady, dear, I suppose, isn’t. You +<i>will</i> help me, Arthur? You will try and think? Poor Alice!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘What about Alice?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘She mopes, dear, rather. She cannot, of course, quite understand why she must +not see her father, and yet his not being, or, for the matter of that, even if +he was, at death’s door.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘At death’s door,’ murmured Lawford under his breath; ‘who was it was saying +that? Have you ever, Sheila, in a dream, or just as one’s thoughts go +sometimes, seen that door?...its ruinous stone lintel carved into lichenous +stone heads...stonily silent in the last thin sunlight, hanging in peace +unlatched. Heated, hunted, in agony—in that cold, green-clad shadowed porch is +haven and sanctuary....But beyond—O God, beyond!’ +</p> + +<p> +Sheila stood listening with startled eyes. ‘And was all that in Quain?’ she +inquired rather flutteringly. +</p> + +<p> +Lawford turned a sidelong head, and looked steadily at his wife. +</p> + +<p> +She shook herself, with a slight shiver. ‘Very well, then,’ she said and paused +in the silence. +</p> + +<p> +Her husband yawned, and smiled, and almost as if lit with that thin last +sunshine seemed the smile that passed for an instant across the reverie of his +shadowy face. He drew a hand wearily over his eyes. ‘What has he been saying +now?’ he inquired like a fretful child. +</p> + +<p> +Sheila stood very quiet and still, as if in fear of scaring some rare, wild, +timid creature by the least stir. ‘Who?’ she merely breathed. +</p> + +<p> +Lawford paused on the hearth-rug with his comb in his hand. ‘It’s just the last +rags of that beastly influenza,’ he said, and began vigorously combing his +hair. And yet, simple and frank though the action was, it moved Sheila, +perhaps, more than any other of the congested occurrences of the last few days. +Her forehead grew suddenly cold, the palms of her hands began to ache, she had +to hasten out of the room to avoid revealing the sheer physical repulsion she +had experienced. +</p> + +<p> +But Lawford, quite unmindful of the shock, continued in a kind of heedless +reverie to watch, as he combed, the still visionary thoughts that passed in +tranced stillness before his eyes. He longed beyond measure for freedom that +until yesterday he had not even dreamed existed outside the covers of some old +impossible romance—the magic of the darkening sky, the invisible flocking +presences of the dead, the shock of imaginations that had no words, of quixotic +emotions which the stranger had stirred in that low, mocking, furtive talk +beside the broken stones of the Huguenot. Was the ‘change’ quite so monstrous, +so meaningless? How often, indeed, he remembered curiously had he seemed to be +standing outside these fast-shut gates of thought, that now had been freely +opened to him. +</p> + +<p> +He drew ajar the door, and leant his ear to listen. From far away came a rich, +long-continued chuckle of laughter, followed by the clatter of a falling plate, +and then, still more uncontrollable laughter. There was a faint smell of toast +on the air. Lawford ventured out on to the landing and into a little room that +had once, in years gone by, been Alice’s nursery. He stood far back from the +strip of open window that showed beneath the green blind, craning forward to +see into the garden—the trees, their knotted trunks, and then, as he stole +nearer, a flower-bed, late roses, geraniums, calceolarias, the lawn and—yes, +three wicker chairs, a footstool, a work-basket, a little table on the smooth +grass in the honey-coloured sunshine; and Sheila sitting there in the autumnal +sunlight, her hands resting on the arms of her chair, her head bent, evidently +deeply engrossed in her thoughts. He crept an inch or two forward, and stooped. +There was a hat on the grass—Alice’s big garden hat—and beside it lay Flitters, +nose on paws, long ears sagging. He had forgotten Flitters. Had Flitters +forgotten him? Would he bark at the strange, distasteful scent of a—Dr +Ferguson? The coast was clear, then. He turned even softlier yet, to confront, +rapt, still, and hovering betwixt astonishment and dread, the blue calm eyes of +his daughter, looking in at the door. It seemed to Lawford as if they had both +been suddenly swept by some unseen power into a still, unearthly silence. +</p> + +<p> +‘We thought,’ he began at last, ‘we thought just to beckon Mrs Lawford from the +window. He—he is asleep.’ +</p> + +<p> +Alice nodded. Her whole face was in a moment flooded with red. It ebbed and +left her pale. ‘I will go down and tell mother you want to see her. It was very +silly of me. I did not quite recognise at first...I suppose, thinking of my +father—’ The words faltered, and the eyes were lifted to his face again with a +desolate, incredulous appeal. Lawford turned away heartsick and trembling. +</p> + +<p> +‘Certainly, certainly, by no means,’ he began, listening vaguely to the glib +patter that seemed to come from another mouth. ‘Your father, my dear young +lady, I venture to think is now really on the road to recovery. Dr Simon makes +excellent progress. But, of course—two heads, we know, are so much better than +one when there’s the least—the least difficulty. The great thing is quiet, +rest, isolation, no possibility of a shock, else—’ His voice fell away, his +eloquence failed. +</p> + +<p> +For Alice stood gazing stirlessly on and on into this infinitely strange, +infinitely familiar shadowy, phantasmal face. ‘Oh yes,’ she replied, ‘I quite +understand, of course; but if I might just peep even, it would—I should be so +much, much happier. Do let me just see him, Dr Ferguson, if only his head on +the pillow! I wouldn’t even breathe. Couldn’t it possibly help—even a +faith-cure?’ She leant forward impulsively, her voice trembling, and her eyes +still shining beneath their faint, melancholy smile. +</p> + +<p> +‘I fear, my dear...it cannot be. He longs to see you. But with his mind, you +know, in this state, it might—?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘But mother never told me,’ broke in the girl desperately, ‘there was anything +wrong with his <i>mind</i>. Oh, but that was quite unfair. You don’t mean, you +don’t mean—that—?’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford scanned swiftly the little square beloved and memoried room that fate +had suddenly converted for him into a cage of unspeakable pain and longing. ‘Oh +no; believe me, no! Not his brain, not that, not even wandering; really: but +always thinking, always longing on and on for you, dear, only. Quite, quite +master of himself, but—’ +</p> + +<p> +‘You talk,’ she broke in again angrily, ‘only in pretence! You are treating me +like a child; and so does mother, and so it has been ever since I came home. +Why, if mother can, and you can, why may not I? Why, if he can walk and talk in +the night....’ +</p> + +<p> +‘But who—who “can walk and talk in the night?”’ inquired a low stealthy voice +out of the quietness behind her. +</p> + +<p> +Alice turned swiftly. Her mother was standing at a little distance, with all +the calm and moveless concentration of a waxwork figure, looking up at her from +the staircase. +</p> + +<p> +‘I was—I was talking to Dr Ferguson, mother.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘But as I came up the stairs I understood you to be inquiring something of Dr +Ferguson, “if,” you were saying, “he can walk and talk in the night”: you +surely were not referring to your father, child? That could not possibly be, in +his state. Dr Ferguson, I know, will bear me out in that at least. And besides, +I really must insist on following out medical directions to the letter. Dr +Ferguson I know, will fully concur. Do, pray, Dr Ferguson,’ continued Sheila, +raising her voice even now scarcely above a rapid murmur—‘do pray assure my +daughter that she must have patience; that however much even he himself may +desire it, it is impossible that she should see her father yet. And now, my +dear child, come down, I want to have a moment’s talk with Dr Ferguson. I +feared from his beckoning at the window that something was amiss.’ +</p> + +<p> +Alice turned, dismayed, and looked steadily, almost with hostility, at the +stranger, so curiously transfixed and isolated in her small old play-room. And +in this scornful yet pleading confrontation her eye fell suddenly on the pin in +his scarf—the claw and the pearl she had known all her life. From that her gaze +flitted, like some wild demented thing’s, over face, hair, hands, clothes, +attitude, expression, and her heart stood still in an awful, inarticulate dread +of the unknown. She turned slowly towards her mother, groped forward a few +steps, turned once more, stretching out her hands towards the vague still +figure whose eyes had called so piteously to her out of their depths, and fell +fainting in the doorway. Lawford stood motionless, vacantly watching Sheila, +who knelt, chafing the cold hands. ‘She has fainted?’ he said; ‘oh, Sheila, +tell me—only fainted?’ +</p> + +<p> +Sheila made no answer; did not even raise her eyes. +</p> + +<p> +‘Some day, Sheila’ he began in a dull voice, and broke off, and without another +word, without even another glance at the still face and blue, twitching lids, +he passed her rapidly by, and in another instant Sheila heard the house-door +shut. She got up quickly, and after a glance into the vacant bedroom turned the +key; then she hastened upstairs for sal volatile and eau de cologne.... +</p> + +<p> +It was yet clear daylight when Lawford appeared beneath the portico of his +house. With a glance of circumspection that almost seemed to suggest a fear of +pursuit, he descended the steps, only to be made aware in so doing that Ada was +with a kind of furtive eagerness pointing out the mysterious Dr Ferguson to a +steadily gazing cook. One or two well-known and many a well-remembered face he +encountered in the thin stream of City men treading blackly along the pavement. +It was a still, high evening, and something very like a forlorn compassion rose +in his mind at sight of their grave, rather pretentious, rather dull, +respectable faces. +</p> + +<p> +He found himself walking with an affectation of effrontery, and smiling with a +faint contempt on all alike, as if to keep himself from slinking, and the wolf +out of his eyes. He felt restless, and watchful, and suspicious, as if he had +suddenly come down in the world. His, then, was a disguise as effectual as a +shabby coat and a glazing eye. His heart sickened. Was it even worth while +living on a crust of social respectability so thin and so exquisitely +treacherous? He challenged no one. One or two actual acquaintances raised and +lowered a faintly inquiring eyebrow in his direction. One even recalled in his +confusion a smile of recognition just a moment too late. There was, it seemed, +a peculiar aura in Lawford’s presence, a shadow of a something in his demeanour +that proved him alien. +</p> + +<p> +None the less green Widderstone kept calling him, much as a bell in the +imagination tolls on and on, the echo of reality. If the worst should come to +the worst, why—there is pasture in the solitary by-ways for the beast that +strays. He quickened his pace along lonelier streets, and soon strode freely +through the little flagged and cobbled village of shops, past the same small +jutting window whose clock had told him the hour on that first dark hurried +night. All was pale and faint with dying colours now; and decay was in the +leaf, and the last swallows filled the gold air with their clashing stillness. +No one heeded him here. He looked from side to side, exulting in the +strangeness. Shops were left behind, the last milestone passed, and in a little +while he was descending the hill beneath the elm boughs, which he remembered +had stood like a turreted wall against the sunset when first he had wandered +down into the churchyard. +</p> + +<p> +At the foot of the hill he passed by the green and white Rectory, and there was +the parson, a short fat, pursy man with wrists protruding from his jacket +sleeves as he stood on tip-toe tying up a rambling rose-shoot on his trim +cedared lawn. The next house barely showed its old red chimney-tops, above its +bowers; the next was empty, with windows vacantly gazing, its paths peopled +with great bearded weeds that stood mutely watching and guarding the +seldom-opened gate. Then came more lofty grandmotherly elms, a dense hedge of +every leaf that pricks, and then Lawford found himself standing at the small +canopied gate of the queer old wooden house that the stranger of his talk had +in part described. +</p> + +<p> +It stood square and high and dark in a small amphitheatre of verdure. Roses +here and there sprang from the grass, and a narrow box-edged path led to a +small door in a low green-mantled wing, with its one square window above the +porch. And while, with vacant mind, Lawford stood waiting, as one stands +forebodingly upon the eve of a new experience he heard as if at a distance the +sound of falling water. He still paused on the country roadside, scrutinising +this strange, still, wooden presence; but at last with an effort he pushed open +the gate, followed the winding path, and pulled the old iron hanging bell. +There came presently a quiet tread, and Herbert himself opened the door which +led into a little square wood-panelled hall, hung with queer old prints and +obscure portraits in dark frames. +</p> + +<p> +‘Ah, yes, come in, Mr Lawford,’ he drawled; ‘I was beginning to be afraid you +were not coming.’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford laid hat and walking-stick on an oak bench, and followed his churchyard +companion up a slightly inclined corridor and a staircase into a high room, +covered far up the yellowish walls with old books on shelves and in cases, +between which hung in little black frames, mezzo tints, etchings, and +antiquated maps. A large table stood a few paces from the deep alcove of the +window, which was surrounded by a low, faded, green seat, and was screened from +the sunshine by wooden shutters. And here the tranquil surge of falling water +shook incessantly on the air, for the three lower casements stood open to the +fading sunset. On a smaller table were spread cups, old earthenware dishes of +fruit, and a big bowl of damask roses. +</p> + +<p> +‘Please sit down; I shan’t be a moment; I am not sure that my sister is in; but +if so, I will tell her we are ready for tea.’ Left to himself in this quiet, +strange old room, Lawford forgot for a while everything else, he was for the +moment so taken up with his surroundings. +</p> + +<p> +What seized on his fancy and strangely affected his mind was this incessant +changing roar of falling water. It must be the Widder, he said to himself, +flowing close to the walls. But not until he had had the boldness to lean head +and shoulders out of the nearest window did he fully realize how close indeed +the Widder was. It came sweeping dark and deep and begreened and full with the +early autumnal rains, actually against the lower walls of the house itself, and +in the middle suddenly swerved in a black, smooth arch, and tumbled headlong +into a great pool, nodding with tall slender water-weeds, and charged in its +bubbled blackness here and there with the last crimson of the setting sun. To +the left of the house, where the waters floated free again, stood vast, still +trees above the clustering rushes; and in glimpses between their spreading +boughs lay the far-stretching countryside, now dimmed with the first mists of +approaching evening. So absorbed he became as he stood leaning over the wooden +sill above the falling water, that eye and ear became enslaved by the roar and +stillness. And in the faint atmosphere of age that seemed like a veil to hang +about the odd old house and these prodigious branches, he fell into a kind of +waking dream. +</p> + +<p> +When at last he did draw back into the room it was perceptibly darker, and a +thin keen shaft of recollection struck across his mind—the recollection of what +he was, and of how he came to be there, his reasons for coming and of that dark +indefinable presence which like a raven had begun to build its dwelling in his +mind. He sat on, his eyes restlessly wandering, his face leaning on his hands; +and in a while the door opened and Herbert returned, carrying an old crimson +and green teapot and a dish of hot cakes. +</p> + +<p> +‘They’re all out,’ he said; ‘sister, Sallie, and boy; but these were in the +oven, so we won’t wait. I hope you haven’t been very much bored.’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford dropped his hands from his face and smiled. ‘I have been looking at the +water,’ he said. +</p> + +<p> +‘My sister’s favorite occupation; she sits for hours and hours, with not even a +book for an apology, staring down into the black old roaring pot. It has a sort +of hypnotic effect after a time. And you’d be surprised how quickly one gets +used to the noise. To me it’s even less distracting than sheer silence. You +don’t know, after all, what on earth sheer silence means—even at Widderstone. +But one can just realize a water-nymph. They chatter; but, thank Heaven, it’s +not articulate.’ He handed Lawford a cup with a certain niceness and +self-consciousness, lifting his eyebrows slightly as he turned. +</p> + +<p> +Lawford found himself listening out of a peculiar stillness of mind to the +voice of this suave and rather inscrutable acquaintance. ‘The curious thing is, +do you know,’ he began rather nervously, ‘that though I must have passed your +gate at least twice in the last few months, I have never noticed it before, +never even caught the sound of the water.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘No, that’s the best of it; nobody ever does. We are just buried alive. We have +lived here for years, and scarcely know a soul—not even our own, perhaps. Why +on earth should one? Acquaintances, after all, are little else than a bad +habit.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘But then, what about me?’ said Lawford. +</p> + +<p> +‘But that’s just it,’ said Herbert. ‘I said <i>acquaintances</i>; that’s just +exactly what I’m going to prove—what very old friends we are. You’ve no idea! +It really is rather queer.’ He took up his cup and sauntered over to the +window. +</p> + +<p> +Lawford eyed him vacantly for a moment, and, following rather his own curious +thoughts than seeking any light on this somewhat vague explanation, again broke +the silence. ‘It’s odd, I suppose, but this house affects me much in the same +way as Widderstone does. I’m not particularly fanciful—at least, I used not to +be. But sitting here I seem, I hope it isn’t a very frantic remark, it seems as +though, if only my ears would let me, I should hear—well, voices. It’s just +what you said about the silence. I suppose it’s the age of the place; it +<i>is</i> very old?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Pretty old, I suppose; it’s worm-eaten and rat-eaten and tindery enough in all +conscience; and the damp doesn’t exactly foster it. It’s a queer old shanty. +There are two or three accounts of it in some old local stuff I have. And of +course there’s a ghost.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘A ghost?’ echoed Lawford, looking up. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap12"></a> +CHAPTER TWELVE</h2> + +<p> +‘What’s in a name?’ laughed Herbert. ‘But it really is a queer show-up of human +oddity. A fellow comes in here, searching; that’s all.’ His back was turned, as +he stood staring absently out, sipping his tea between his sentences. ‘He comes +in—oh, it’s a positive fact, for I’ve seen him myself, just sitting back in my +chair here, you know, watching him as one would a tramp in one’s orchard.’ He +cast a candid glance over his shoulder. ‘First he looks round, like a prying +servant. Then he comes cautiously on—a kind of grizzled, fawn-coloured face, +middle-size, with big hands; and then just like some quiet, groping, nocturnal +creature, he begins his precious search—shelves, drawers that are not here, +cupboards gone years ago, questing and nosing no end, and quite methodically +too, until he reaches the window. Then he stops, looks back, narrows his foxy +lids, listens—quite perceptibly, you know, a kind of gingerish blur; then he +seems to open this corner bookcase here, as if it were a door and goes out +along what I suppose might at some time have been an outside gallery or +balcony, unless, as I rather fancy, the house extended once beyond these +windows. Anyhow, out he goes quite deliberately, treading the air as lightly as +Botticelli’s angels, until, however far you lean out of the window, you can’t +follow him any further. And then—and this is the bit that takes one’s +fancy—when you have contentedly noddled down again to whatever you may have +been doing when the wretch appeared, or are sitting in a cold sweat, with +bolting eyes awaiting developments, just according to your school of thought, +or of nerves, the creature comes back—comes back; and with what looks +uncommonly like a lighted candle in his hand. That really is a thrill, I assure +you.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘But you’ve seen this—you’ve really seen this yourself?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Oh yes, twice,’ replied Herbert cheerfully. ‘And my sister, quite by +haphazard, once saw him from the garden. She was shelling peas one evening for +Sallie, and she distinctly saw him shamble out of the window here, and go +shuffling along, mid-air, across the roaring washpot down below, turn sharp +round the high corner of the house, sheer against the stars, in a kind of +frightened hurry. And then, after five minutes’ concentrated watching over the +shucks, she saw him come shuffling back again—the same distraction, the same +nebulous snuff colour, and a candle trailing its smoke behind him as he whisked +in home.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘And then?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Ah, then,’ said Herbert, lagging along the bookshelves, and scanning the +book-backs with eyes partially closed: he turned with lifted teapot, and +refilled his visitor’s cup; ‘then, wherever you are—I mean,’ he added, cutting +up a little cake into six neat slices, ‘wherever the chance inmate of the room +happens to be, he comes straight for you, at a quite alarming velocity, and +fades, vanishes, melts, or, as it were, silts inside.’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford listened in a curious hush that had suddenly fallen over his mind. +‘“Fades inside? silts?”—I’m awfully stupid, but what on earth do you mean?’ The +room had slowly emptied itself of daylight; its own darkness, it seemed, had +met that of the narrowing night, and Herbert deliberately lit a cigarette +before replying. His clear pale face, with its smooth outline and thin mouth +and rather long dark eyes, turned with a kind of serene good-humour towards his +questioner. +</p> + +<p> +‘Why,’ he said, ‘I mean frankly just that. Besides, it’s Grisel’s own phrase; +and an old nurse we used to have said much the same. He comes, or <i>it</i> +comes towards you, first just walking, then with a kind of gradually +accelerated slide or glide, and sweeps straight into you,’ he tapped his chest, +‘me, whoever it may be is here. In a kind of panic, I suppose, to hide, or +perhaps simply to get back again.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Get back where?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Be resumed, as it were, via you. You see, I suppose he is compelled to regain +his circle, or Purgatory, or Styx, whatever you like to call it, via +consciousness. No one present, then no revenant or spook, or astral body, or +hallucination: what’s in a name? And of course even an hallucination is +mind-stuff, and on its own, as it were. What I mean is that the poor devil must +have some kind of human personality to get back through in order to make his +exit from our sphere of consciousness into his. And naturally, of course to +make his entrance too. If like a tenuous smoke he can get in, the probability +is that he gets out in precisely the same fashion. For really, if you weren’t +consciously expecting the customary impact (you actually jerk forward in the +act of resistance unresisted), you would not notice his going. I am afraid I +must be horribly boring you with all these tangled theories. All I mean is, +that if you were really absorbed in what you happened to be doing at the time, +the thing might come and go, with your mind for entrance and exit, as it were, +without your being conscious of it at all.’ There was a longish pause, in which +Herbert slowly inhaled and softly breathed out his smoke. +</p> + +<p> +‘And what—what is the poor wretch searching <i>for?</i> And what—why, what +becomes of him when he does go?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Ah, there you have me! One merely surmises just as one’s temperament or +convictions lean. Grisel says it’s some poor derelict soul in search of +peace—that the poor beggar wants finally to die, in fact, and can’t. Sallie +smells crime. After all, what is every man?’ he talked on; ‘a horde of +ghosts—like a Chinese nest of boxes—oaks that were acorns that were oaks. Death +lies behind us, not in front—in our ancestors, back and back, until—’ +</p> + +<p> +‘“Until?”’ Lawford managed to remark. +</p> + +<p> +‘Ah, that settles me again. Don’t they call it an amoeba? But really I am +abjectly ignorant of all that kind of stuff. We are <i>all</i> we are, and all +in a sense we care to dream we are. And for that matter, anything outlandish, +bizarre, is a godsend in this rather stodgy life. It is after all just what the +old boy said—it’s only the impossible that’s credible; whatever credible may +mean....’ +</p> + +<p> +It seemed to Lawford as if the last remark had wafted him bodily into the +presence of his kind, blinking, intensely anxious old friend, Mr Bethany. And +what leagues asunder the two men were who had happened on much the same words +to express their convictions. +</p> + +<p> +He drew his hand gropingly over his face, half rose, and again seated himself. +‘Whatever it may be,’ he said, ‘the whole thing reminds me, you know—it is in a +way so curiously like my own—my own case.’ +</p> + +<p> +Herbert sat on, a little drawn up in his chair, quietly smoking. The crash of +the falling water, after seeming to increase in volume with the fading of +evening, had again died down in the darkness to a low multitudinous tumult as +of countless inarticulate, echoing voices. +</p> + +<p> +‘“Bizarre,” you said; God knows <i>I</i> am.’ But Herbert still remained +obdurately silent. ‘You remember, perhaps,’ Lawford faintly began again, ‘our +talk the other night?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Oh, rather,’ replied the cordial voice out of the dusk. +</p> + +<p> +‘I suppose you thought I was insane?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Insane!’ There was a genuinely amused astonishment in the echo. ‘You were +lucidity itself. Besides—well, honestly, if I may venture, I don’t put very +much truck in what one calls one’s sanity: except, of course, as a bond of +respectability and a means of livelihood.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘But did you realise in the least from what I said how I really stand? That I +went down into that old shadowy hollow one man, and came back—well—this?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I gathered vaguely something like that. I thought at first it was merely an +affectation—that what you said was an affectation, I mean—until—well, to be +frank, it was the “this” that so immensely interested me. Especially,’ he added +almost with a touch of gaiety, ‘especially the last glimpse. But if it’s really +not a forbidden question, what precisely <i>was</i> the other? What precise +manner of man, I mean, came down into Widderstone?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘It is my face that is changed, Mr Herbert. If you’ll try to understand me—my +<i>face</i>. What you see now is not what I really am, not what I was. Oh, it +is all quite different. I know perfectly well how absurd it must sound. And you +won’t press me further. But that’s the truth: that’s what they have done for +me.’ +</p> + +<p> +It seemed to Lawford as if a remote tiny shout of laughter had been suddenly +caught back in the silence that had followed this confession. He peered in vain +in the direction of his companion. Even his cigarette revealed no sign of him. +‘I know, I know,’ he went gropingly on; ‘I felt it would sound to you like +nothing but frantic incredible nonsense. <i>You</i> can’t see it. <i>You</i> +can’t feel it. <i>You</i> can’t hear these hooting voices. It’s no use at all +blinking the fact; I am simply on the verge, if not over it, of insanity.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘As to that, Mr Lawford,’ came the still voice out of the darkness; ‘the very +fact of your being able to say so seems to me all but proof positive that +you’re not. Insanity is on another plane, isn’t it? in which one can’t compare +one’s states. As for what you say being credible, take our precious noodle of a +spook here! Ninety-nine hundredths of this amiable world of ours would have +guffawed the poor creature into imperceptibility ages ago. To such poor +credulous creatures as my sister and I he is no more and no less a fact, a +personality, an amusing reality than—well, this teacup. Here we are, amazing +mysteries both of us in any case; and all round us are scores of books, dealing +just with life, pure, candid, and unexpurgated; and there’s not a single one +among them but reads like a taradiddle. Yet grope between the lines of any +autobiography, it’s pretty clear what one has got—a feeble, timid, creeping +attempt to describe the indescribable. As for what you say <i>your</i> case is, +the bizarre—that kind very seldom gets into print at all. In all our +make-believe, all our pretence, how, honestly, could it? But there, this is +immaterial. The real question is, may I, can I help? What I gather is this: You +just trundled down into Widderstone all among the dead men, and—but one moment, +I’ll light up.’ +</p> + +<p> +A light flickered up in the dark. Shading it in his hand from the night air +straying through the open window, Herbert lit the two candles that stood upon +the little chimneypiece behind Lawford’s head. Then sauntering over to the +window again, almost as if with an affectation of nonchalance, he drew one of +the shutters, and sat down. ‘Nothing much struck me,’ he went on, leaning back +on his hands, ‘I mean on Sunday evening, until you said good-bye. It was then +that I caught in the moon a distinct glimpse of your face.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘This,’ said Lawford, with a sudden horrible sinking of the heart. +</p> + +<p> +Herbert nodded. ‘The fact is, I have a print of it,’ he said. +</p> + +<p> +‘A print of it?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘A miserable little dingy engraving.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Of this?’ Herbert nodded, with eyes fixed. ‘Where?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘That’s the nuisance. I searched high and low for it the instant I got home. +For the moment it has been mislaid; but it must be somewhere in the house and +it will turn up all in good time. It’s the frontispiece of one of a queer old +hotchpotch of pamphlets, sewn up together by some amateur enthusiast in a +marbled paper cover—confessions, travels, trials and so on. All eighteenth +century, and all in French.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘And mine?’ said Lawford, gazing stonily across the candlelight. +</p> + +<p> +Herbert, from a head slightly stooping, gazed back in an almost birdlike +fashion across the room at his visitor. +</p> + +<p> +‘Sabathier’s,’ he said. +</p> + +<p> +‘Sabathier’s!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘A really curious resemblance. Of course, I am speaking only from memory; and +perhaps it’s not quite so vivid in this light; but still astonishingly clear.’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford sat drawn up, staring at his companion’s face in an intense and +helpless silence. His mouth opened but no words came. +</p> + +<p> +‘Of course,’ began Herbert again, ‘I don’t say there’s anything in it—except +the—the mere coincidence,’ he paused and glanced out of the open casement +beside him. ‘But there’s just one obvious question. Do you happen to know of +any strain of French blood in your family?’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford shut his eyes, even memory seemed to be forsaking him at last. ‘No,’ he +said, after a long pause, ‘there’s a little Dutch, I think, on my mother’s +side, but no French.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘No Sabathier, then?’ said Herbert, smiling. ‘And then there’s another +question—this change; is it really as complete as you suppose? Has it—please +just warn me off if I am in the least intruding—has it been noticed?’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford hesitated. ‘Oh, yes,’ he said slowly, ‘it has been noticed—my wife, a +few friends.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Do you mind this infernal clatter?’ said Herbert, laying his fingers on the +open casement. +</p> + +<p> +‘No, no. And you think?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘My dear fellow, I don’t think anything. It’s all the craziest conjecture. +Stranger things even than this have happened. There are dozens here—in print. +What are we human beings after all? Clay in the hands of the potter. Our bodies +are merely an inheritance, packed tight and corded up. We have practically no +control over their main functions. We can’t even replace a little finger-nail. +And look at the faces of us—what atrocious mockeries most of them are of +<i>any</i> kind of image! But we know our bodies change—age, sickness, thought, +passion, fatality. It proves they are amazingly plastic. And merely even as a +theory it is not in the least untenable that by force of some violent +convulsive effort from outside one’s body <i>might</i> change. It answers with +odd voluntariness to friend or foe, smile or snarl. As for what we call the +laws of Nature, they are pure assumptions to-day, and may be nothing better +than scrap-iron tomorrow. Good Heavens, Lawford, consider man’s abysmal +impudence.’ He smoked on in silence for a moment. ‘You say you fell asleep down +there?’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford nodded. Herbert tapped his cigarette on the sill. ‘Just following up +our ludicrous conjecture, you know,’ he remarked musingly, ‘it wasn’t such a +bad opportunity for the poor chap.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘But surely,’ said Lawford, speaking as it were out of a dream of candle-light +and reverberating sound and clearest darkness, towards this strange deliberate +phantom with the unruffled clear-cut features—‘surely then, in that case, he is +here now? And yet, on my word of honour, though every friend I ever had in the +world should deny it, I am the same. Memory stretches back clear and sound to +my childhood. I can see myself with extraordinary lucidity, how I think, my +motives and all that; and in spite of these voices that I seem to hear, and +this peculiar kind of longing to break away, as it were, just to press on—it is +I,—I myself, that am speaking to you now out of this—this mask.’ +</p> + +<p> +Herbert glanced reflectively at his companion. ‘You mustn’t let me tire you,’ +he said; ‘but even on our theory it would not necessarily follow that you +yourself would be much affected. It’s true this fellow Sabathier really was +something of a personality. He had a rather unusual itch for life, for trying +on and on to squeeze something out of experience that isn’t there; and he +seemed never to weary of a magnificent attempt to find in his fellow-creatures, +especially in the women he met, what even—if they have it—they cannot give. The +little book I wanted to show you is partly autobiographical and really does +manage to set the fellow on his feet. Even there he does absolutely take one’s +imagination. I shall never forget the thrill of picking him up in the Charing +Cross Road. You see, I had known the queer old tombstone for years. He’s +enormously vivid—quite beyond my feebleness to describe, with a kind of French +verve and rapture. Unluckily we can’t get nearer than two years to his death. I +shouldn’t mind guessing some last devastating dream swept over him, held him +the breath of an instant too long beneath the wave, and he caved in. We know he +killed himself; and perhaps lived to regret it ever after. +</p> + +<p> +‘After all, what is this precious dying we talk so much about?’ Herbert +continued after a while, his eyes restlessly wandering from shelf to shelf. +‘You remember our talk in the churchyard? We all know that the body fades quick +enough when its occupant is gone. Supposing even in the sleep of the living it +lies very feebly guarded. And supposing in that state some infernally potent +thing outside it, wandering disembodied, just happens on it—like some hungry +sexton beetle on the carcase of a mouse. Supposing—I know it’s the most +outrageous theorising—but supposing all these years of sun and dark, +Sabathier’s emanation, or whatever you like to call it, horribly restless, by +some fatality longing on and on just for life, or even for the face, the voice, +of some “impossible she” whom he couldn’t get in this muddled world, simply +loathing all else; supposing he has been lingering in ambush down beside those +poor old dusty bones that had poured out for him such marrowy hospitality—oh, I +know it; the dead do. And then, by a chance, one quiet autumn evening, a +veritable godsend of a little Miss Muffet comes wandering down under the shade +of his immortal cypresses, half asleep, fagged out, depressed in mind and body, +perhaps: imagine yourself in his place, and he in yours!’ Herbert stood up in +his eagerness, his sleek hair shining. ‘The one clinching chance of a century! +Wouldn’t you have made a fight for it? Wouldn’t you have risked the raid? I can +just conceive it—the amazing struggle in that darkness within a darkness; like +some dazed alien bee bursting through the sentinels of a hive; one mad +impetuous clutch at victory; then the appalling stirring on the other side; the +groping back to a house dismantled, rearranged, not, mind you, disorganised or +disintegrated....’ He broke off with a smile, as if of apology for his long, +fantastic harangue. +</p> + +<p> +Lawford sat listening, his eyes fixed on Herbert’s colourless face. There was +not a sound else, it seemed, than that slightly drawling scrupulous voice +poking its way amid a maze of enticing, baffling thoughts. Herbert turned away +with a shrug. ‘It’s tempting stuff,’ he said, choosing another cigarette. ‘But +anyhow, the poor beggar failed.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Failed?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Why, surely; if he had succeeded I should not now be talking to a mere +imperfect simulacrum, to the outward illusion of a passing likeness to the man, +but to Sabathier himself!’ His eyes moved slowly round and dwelt for a moment +with a dark, quiet scrutiny on his visitor. +</p> + +<p> +‘You say a passing likeness; do you <i>mean</i> that?’ +</p> + +<p> +Herbert smiled indulgently. ‘If one <i>can</i> mean what is purely a +speculation. I am only trying to look at the thing dispassionately, you see. We +are so much the slaves of mere repetition. Here is life—yours and mine—a kind +of <i lang="la">plenum in vacuo</i>. It is only when we begin to play the +eavesdropper; when something goes askew; when one of the sentries on the +frontier of the unexpected shouts a hoarse “<i lang="fr">Qui vive?”</i>—it is +only then we begin to question; to prick our aldermen and pinch the calves of +our kings. Why, who is there can answer to anybody’s but his own satisfaction +just that one fundamental question—Are we the prisoners, the slaves, the +inheritors, the creatures, or the creators of our bodies? Fallen angels or +horrific dust? As for identity or likeness or personality, we have only our +neighbours’ nod for them, and just a fading memory. No, the old fairy tales +knew better; and witchcraft’s witchcraft to the end of the chapter. Honestly, +and just of course on that one theory, Lawford, I can’t help thinking that +Sabathier’s raid only just so far succeeded as to leave his impression in the +wax. It doesn’t, of course, follow that it will necessarily end there. It +might—it may be even now just gradually fading away. It may, you know, need +driving out—with whips and scorpions. It might, perhaps, work in.’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford sat cold and still. ‘It’s no good, no good,’ he said, ‘I don’t +understand; I can’t follow you. I was always stupid, always bigoted and +cocksure. These things have never seemed anything but old women’s tales to me. +And now I must pay for it. And this Nicholas Sabathier; you say he was a +blackguard?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Well,’ said Herbert with a faint smile, ‘that depends on your definition of +the word. He wasn’t a flunkey, a fool, or a prig, if that’s what you mean. He +wasn’t perhaps on Mrs Grundy’s visiting list. He wasn’t exactly gregarious. And +yet in a sense that kind of temperament is so rare that Sappho, Nelson, and +Shelley shared it. To the stodgy, suety world of course it’s little else than +sheer moonshine, midsummer madness. Naturally, in its own charming and stodgy +way the world kept flickering cold water in his direction. Naturally it +hissed.... I shall find the book. You shall have the book; oh yes.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘There’s only one more question,’ said Lawford in a dull, slow voice, stooping +and covering his face with his hands. ‘I know it’s impossible for you to +realise—but to me time seems like that water there, to be heaping up about me. +I wait, just as one waits when the conductor of an orchestra lifts his hand and +in a moment the whole surge of brass and wood, cymbal and drum will crash +out—and sweep me under. I can’t tell you Herbert, how it all is, with just +these groping stirrings of that mole in my mind’s dark. You say it may be this +face, working in! God knows. I find it easy to speak to you—this cold, clear +sense, you know. The others feel too much, or are afraid, or—Let me think—yes, +I was going to ask you a question. But no one can answer it.’ He peered darkly, +with white face suddenly revealed between his hands. ‘What remains now? Where +do <i>I</i> come in? What is there left for <i>me</i> to do?’ +</p> + +<p> +And at that moment there sounded, even above the monotonous roar of the water +beyond the window—there fell the sound of a light footfall approaching along +the corridor. +</p> + +<p> +‘Listen,’ said Herbert; ‘here’s my sister coming; we’ll ask her.’ +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap13"></a> +CHAPTER THIRTEEN</h2> + +<p> +The door opened. Lawford rose, and into the further rays of the candlelight +entered a rather slim figure in a light summer gown. +</p> + +<p> +‘Just home?’ said Herbert. +</p> + +<p> +‘We’ve been for a walk—’ +</p> + +<p> +‘My sister always forgets everything,’ said Herbert, turning to Lawford; ‘even +tea-time. This is Mr Lawford, Grisel. We’ve been arguing no end. And we want +you to give a decision. It’s just this: Supposing if by some impossible trick +you had come in now, not the charming familiar sister you are, but shorter, +fatter, fair and round-faced, quite different, physically, you know—what would +you do?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘What nonsense you talk, Herbert!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes, but supposing: a complete transmogrification—by some unimaginable +ingression or enchantment, by nibbling a bunch of roses, or whatever you like +to call it?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘<i>Only</i> physically?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Well, yes, actually; but potentially, why—that’s another matter.’ +</p> + +<p> +The dark eyes passed slowly from her brother’s face and rested gravely on their +visitor’s. +</p> + +<p> +‘Is he making fun of me?’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford almost imperceptibly shook his head. +</p> + +<p> +‘But what a question! And I’ve had no tea.’ She drew her gloves slowly through +her hand. ‘The thing, of course, isn’t possible, I know. But shouldn’t I go +mad, don’t you think?’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford gazed quietly back into the clear, grave, deliberate eyes. ‘Suppose, +suppose, just for the sake of argument—<i>not</i>,’ he suggested. +</p> + +<p> +She turned her head and reflected, glancing from one to the other of the pure, +steady candle-flames. +</p> + +<p> +‘And what was <i>your</i> answer?’ she said, looking over her shoulder at her +brother. +</p> + +<p> +‘My dear child, you know what <i>my</i> answers are like!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘And yours?’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford took a deep breath, gazing mutely, forlornly, into the lovely +untroubled peace of her eyes, and without the least warning tears swept up into +his own. With an immense effort he turned, and choking back every sound, +beating back every thought, groped his way towards the square black darkness of +the open door. +</p> + +<p> +‘I must think, I must think,’ he managed to whisper, lifting his hand and +steadying himself. He caught over his shoulder the glimpse of a curiously +distorted vision, a lifted candle, and a still face gazing after him with +infinitely grieved eyes, then found himself groping and stumbling down the +steep, uneven staircase into the darkness of the queer old wooden and hushed +and lonely house. The night air cold on his face calmed his mind. He turned and +held out his hand. +</p> + +<p> +‘You’ll come again?’ Herbert was saying, with a hint of anxiety, even of +apology in his voice. +</p> + +<p> +Lawford nodded, with eyes fixed blankly on the candle, and turning once more, +made his way slowly down the narrow green-bordered path upon which the stars +rained a scattered light so feeble it seemed but as a haze that blurred the +darkness. He pushed open the little white wicket and turned his face towards +the soundless, leaf-crowned hill. He had advanced hardly a score of steps in +the thick dust when almost as if its very silence had struck upon his ear he +remembered the black broken grave with its sightless heads that lay beyond the +leaves. And fear, vast and menacing, fear such as only children know, broke +like a sea of darkness on his heart. He stopped dead—cold, helpless, trembling. +And, in the silence he heard a faint cry behind him and light footsteps +pursuing him. He turned again. In the thick close gloom beneath the enormous +elm-boughs the grey eyes shone clearly visible in the face upturned to him. ‘My +brother,’ she began breathlessly—‘the little French book. It was I who—who +mislaid it.’ +</p> + +<p> +The set, stricken face listened unmoved. +</p> + +<p> +‘You are ill. Come back! I am afraid you are very ill.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘It’s not that, not that,’ Lawford muttered; ‘don’t leave me; I am alone. Don’t +question me,’ he said strangely, looking down into her face, clutching her +hand; ‘only understand that I can’t, I can’t go on.’ He swept a lean arm +towards the unseen churchyard. ‘I am afraid.’ +</p> + +<p> +The cold hand clasped his closer. ‘Hush, don’t speak! Come back; come back. I +am with you, a friend, you see; come back.’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford clutched her hand as a blind man in sudden peril might clutch the hand +of a child. He saw nothing clearly; spoke almost without understanding his +words. +</p> + +<p> +‘Oh, but it’s <i>must</i>,’ he said; ‘I <i>must</i> go on. You see—why, +everything depends on struggling through: the future! But if you only +knew—There!’ Again his arm swept out, and the lean terrified face turned +shuddering from the dark. +</p> + +<p> +‘I do know; believe me, believe me! I can guess. See, I am coming with you; we +will go together. As if, as if I did not know what it is to be afraid. Oh, +believe me; no one is near; we go on; and see! it gradually, gradually +lightens. How thankful I am I came.’ +</p> + +<p> +She had turned and they were steadily ascending as if pushing their way, +battling on through some obstacle of the mind rather than of the senses beneath +the star-powdered callous vault of night. And it seemed to Lawford as if, as +they pressed on together, some obscure detestable presence as slowly, as +doggedly had drawn worsted aside. He could see again the peaceful outspread +branches of the trees, the lych-gate standing in clear-cut silhouette against +the liquid dusk of the sky. A strange calm stole over his mind. The very +meaning and memory of his fear faded out and vanished, as the passed-away +clouds of a storm that leave a purer, serener sky. +</p> + +<p> +They stopped and stood together on the brow of the little hill, and Lawford, +still trembling from head to foot, looked back across the hushed and lightless +countryside. ‘It’s all gone now,’ he said wearily, ‘and now there’s nothing +left. You see, I cannot even ask your forgiveness—and a stranger!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Please don’t say that—unless—unless—a “pilgrim” too. I think, surely, you must +own we did have the best of it that time. Yes—and I don’t care <i>who</i> may +be listening—but we <i>did</i> win through.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘What can I say? How shall I explain? How shall I make you understand?’ +</p> + +<p> +The clear grey eyes showed not the faintest perturbation. ‘But I do; I do +indeed, in part; I do understand, ever so faintly.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘And now I will come back with <i>you</i>.’ +</p> + +<p> +They paused in the darkness face to face, the silence of the sky, arched in its +vastness above the little hill, the only witness of their triumph. +</p> + +<p> +She turned unquestioningly. And laughing softly almost as children do, the +stalking shadows of a twilight wood behind them—they trod in silence back to +the house. They said good-bye at the gate, and Lawford started once more for +home. He walked slowly, conscious of an almost intolerable weariness, as if his +strength had suddenly been wrested away from him. And at some distance beyond +the top of the hill he sat down on the bank beside a nettled ditch, and with +his book pressed down upon the wayside grass struck a match, and holding it low +in the scented, windless air turned slowly the cockled leaf. +</p> + +<p> +Few of them were alike except for the dinginess of the print and the sinister +smudge of the portraits. All were sewn roughly together into a mould-stained, +marbled cover. He lit a second match, and as he did so glanced as if +inquiringly over his shoulder. And a score or so of pages before the end he +came at last upon the name he was seeking, and turned the page. +</p> + +<p> +It was a likeness even more striking in its crudeness of ink and line and paper +than the most finished of portraits could have been. It repelled, and yet it +fascinated him. He had not for a moment doubted Herbert’s calm conviction. And +yet as he stooped in the grass, closely scrutinising the blurred obscure +features, he felt the faintest surprise not so much at the significant +resemblance but at his own composure, his own steady, unflinching confrontation +with this sinister and intangible adversary. The match burned down to his +fingers. It hissed faintly in the grass. +</p> + +<p> +He stuffed the book into his pocket, and stared into the pale dial of his +watch. It was a few minutes after eleven. Midnight, then, would just see him +in. He rose stiffly and yawned in sheer exhaustion. Then, hesitating, he turned +his head and looked back towards the hollow. But a vague foreboding held him +back. A sour and vacuous incredulity swept over him. What was the use of all +this struggling and vexation. What gain in living on? Once dead <i>his</i> +sluggish spirit at least would find its rest. Dust to dust it would indeed be +for him. What else, in sober earnest, had he been all his daily stolid life but +half dead, scarce conscious, without a living thought, or desire, in head or +heart? +</p> + +<p> +And while he was still gloomily debating within himself he had turned towards +home, and soon was walking in a kind of reverie, even his extreme tiredness in +part forgotten, and only a far-away dogged recollection in his mind that in +spite of shame, in spite of all his miserable weakness, the words had been +uttered once for all, and in all sincerity, ‘We <i>did</i> win through.’ +</p> + +<p> +Yet a desolate and odd air of strangeness seemed to drape his unlighted house +as he stood looking up in a kind of furtive communion with its windows. It +affected him with that discomforting air of extreme and meaningless novelty +that things very familiar sometimes take upon themselves. In this leaden +tiredness no impression could be trustworthy. His lids shut of themselves as he +softly mounted the steps. It seemed a needlessly wide door that soundlessly +admitted him. But however hard he pressed the key his bedroom door remained +stubbornly shut until he found that it was already unlocked and he had only to +turn the handle. A night-light burned in a little basin on the washstand. The +room was hung, as it were, with the stillness of night. And half lying on the +bed in her dressing-gown, her head leaning on the rail at the foot, was Alice, +just as sleep had overtaken her. +</p> + +<p> +Lawford returned to the door and listened. It seemed he heard a voice talking +downstairs, and yet not talking, for it ran on and on in an incessant slightly +argumentative monotony that had neither break nor interruption. He closed the +door, and stooping laid his hand softly on Alice’s narrow, still childish hand +that lay half-folded on her knee. Her eyes opened instantly and gazed widely +into his face. A slow vacant smile of sleep came and went and her fingers +tightened gently over his as again her lids drooped down over the drowsy blue +eyes. +</p> + +<p> +‘At last, at last, dear,’ she said; ‘I have been waiting such a time. But we +mustn’t talk much. Mother is waiting up, reading.’ +</p> + +<p> +Faintly through the close-shut door came the sound of that distant +expressionless voice monotonously rising and falling. +</p> + +<p> +‘Why didn’t you tell me, dear?’ Alice still sleepily whispered. ‘Would I have +asked a single question? How could I? Oh, if you had only trusted me!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘But the change—the change, Alice! You must have seen that. You spoke to me, +you did think I was only a stranger; and even when you knew, it was only fear +on your face, dearest, and aversion; and you turned to your mother first. Don’t +think, Alice, that I am...God only knows—I’m not complaining. But truth is best +whatever it is. I do feel that. You mustn’t be afraid of hurting me, my dear.’ +</p> + +<p> +Her very hands seemed to quicken in his as now, with sleep quite gone, the fret +of memory returned, and she must reassure both herself and him. ‘But you see, +dear, mother had told me that you—besides, I did know you at once, really; +quite inside, you know, deep down. I know I was perplexed; I didn’t understand; +but that was all. Why, even when you came up in the dark, and we talked—if you +only knew how miserable I had been—though I knew even then there was something +different, still I was not a bit afraid. Was I? And shouldn’t I have been +afraid, horribly afraid, if <i>you</i> had not been <i>you?</i>’ She repressed +a little shudder, and clasped his hand more closely. ‘Don’t let us say anything +more about it, she implored him; ‘we are just together again, you and I; that +is all that matters.’ But her words were like brave soldiers who have fought +their way through an ambuscade but have left all confidence behind them. +</p> + +<p> +Lawford listened; and that was enough just now—that she still, in spite of +doubt, believed in him, and thought and cared for him. He was too tired to have +refused the least kindness. He made no answer, but leant his head on the cool, +slender fingers in gratitude and peace. And, just as he was, he almost +instantly fell asleep. He woke in the darkness to find himself alone. He groped +his way heavily to the door and turned the handle. But now it was really +locked. Energy failed him. ‘I suppose—Sheila...’ he muttered. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap14"></a> +CHAPTER FOURTEEN</h2> + +<p> +Sheila, calm, alert, reserved, was sitting at the open window when he awoke +again. His breakfast tray stood on a little table beside the bed. He raised +himself on his elbow and looked at his wife. The morning light shone full on +her features as she turned quickly at sound of his stirring. +</p> + +<p> +‘You have slept late,’ she said, in a low, mellow voice. +</p> + +<p> +‘Have I, Sheila? I suppose I was tired out. It is very kind of you to have got +everything ready like this.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I am afraid, Arthur, I was thinking rather of the maids. I like to +inconvenience them as little as possible; in their usual routine, I mean. How +are you feeling, do you think, this morning?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I—I haven’t seen the glass, Sheila.’ +</p> + +<p> +She paused to place a little pencil tick at the foot of the page of her +butcher’s book. ‘And did you—did you try?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Did I try? Try what?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I understood,’ she said, turning slowly in her chair, ‘you gave me to +understand that you went out with the specific intention of trying to +regain.... But there, forgive me, Arthur; I think I must be getting a little +bit hardened to the position, so far at least as any hope is in my mind of +rather amateurish experiments being of much help. I may seem unsympathetic in +saying frankly what I feel. But amateurish or no, you are curiously erratic. +Why, if you really were the Dr Ferguson whose part you play so admirably you +could scarcely spend a more active life.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘All you mean, Sheila, I suppose, is that I have failed.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘“Failed” did not enter my mind. I thought, looking at you just now in your +clothes on the bed, one might for the moment be deceived into thinking there +was a slight—quite the slightest improvement. There was not quite that’—she +hovered for the right word—‘that tenseness. Whether or not, whether you desired +any such change or didn’t, I should have supposed in any case it would have +been better to act as far as possible like any ordinary person. You were +certainly in an extraordinarily sound sleep. I was almost alarmed; until I +remembered that it was a little after two when I looked up from reading aloud +to keep myself awake and discovered that you had only just come home. I had no +fire. You know how easily late hours bring on my headaches; a little thought +might possibly have suggested that I should be anxious to hear. But no; it +seems I cannot profit by experience, Arthur. And even now you have not answered +surely a very natural question. You do not recollect, perhaps, exactly what did +happen last night? Did you go in the direction even of Widderstone?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes, Sheila, I went to Widderstone.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘It was of course absurd to suppose that sitting on a seat beside the +broken-down grave of a suicide would have the slightest effect on one’s—one’s +physical condition; though possibly it might affect one’s brain. It would mine; +I am at least certain of that. It was your own prescription, however; and it +merely occurred to me to inquire whether the actual experience has not brought +you round to my own opinion.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes, I think it has,’ Lawford answered calmly. ‘But I don’t quite see what +suicide has got to do with it; unless—You know Widderstone, then, Sheila?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I drove there last Saturday afternoon.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘For prayer or praise?’ Although Lawford had not actually raised his head, he +became conscious rather of the wonderfully adjusted mass of hair than of the +pained dignity in the face that was now closely regarding him. +</p> + +<p> +‘I went,’ came the rigidly controlled retort, ‘simply to test an inconceivable +story.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘And returned?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Convinced, Arthur, of its inconceivability. But if you would kindly inform me +what precise formula you followed at Widderstone last night, I would tell you +why I think the explanation, or rather your first account of the matter, is not +an explanation of the facts.’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford shot a rather doglike glance over his toast. ‘Danton?’ he said. +</p> + +<p> +‘Candidly, Arthur, Mr Danton doubts the whole story. Your very conduct—well, it +would serve no useful purpose to go into that. Candidly, on the other hand, Mr. +Danton did make some extremely helpful suggestions—basing them, of course, on +the <i>truth</i> of your account. He has seen a good deal of life; and +certainly very mysterious things do occur to quite innocent and well-meaning +people without the faintest shadow of warning, and as Mr. Bethany himself said, +evil birds do come home to roost, and often out of a clear sky, as it were. But +there, every fresh solution that occurs to me only makes the thing more +preposterous, more, I was going to say, disreputable—I mean, of course, to the +outside world. And we have our duties to perform to them too, I suppose. Why, +what can we say? What plausible account of ourselves have we? We shall never be +able to look anybody in the face again. I can only—I am compelled to believe +that God has been pleased to make this precise visitation upon us—an eye for an +eye, I suppose, <i>somewhere</i>. And to that conviction I shall hold until +actual circumstances convince me that it’s false. What, however, and this is +all that I have to say now, what I cannot understand are your amazing +indiscretions.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Do you understand your own, Sheila?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘My indiscretions, Arthur?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Well,’ said Lawford, ‘wasn’t it indiscreet, don’t you think, to risk divine +retribution by marrying me? Shouldn’t you have inquired? Wasn’t it indiscreet +to allow me to remain here in—in my “visitation?” Wasn’t it indiscreet to risk +the moral stigma this unhappy face of mine must cast on its surroundings? I am +not sure whether such a change as this constitutes cruelty.... Oh, what is the +use of fretting and babbling on like this?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Am I to understand, then, that you refuse positively to discuss this horrible +business any more? You are doing your best to drive me away, Arthur; you must +see that. Will you be very disappointed if I refuse to go?’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford rose from the bed. ‘Listen just this once,’ he said, seating himself on +the corner of the dressing-table. ‘Imagine all this—whatever you like to call +it—obliterated. Take this,’ he nodded towards the glass, ‘entirely for itself, +on its own merits, as it were. Let the dead past bury its dead. Which, now, +precisely, <i>really</i> do you prefer—him,’ he jerked his head in the +direction of the dispassionate youthful picture on the wall, ‘him or me?’ +</p> + +<p> +He was so close to her now that he could see the faintest tremor on the face +that had suddenly become grey and still in the thin clear sunshine. +</p> + +<p> +‘I own it, I own it,’ he went on, slowly; ‘the change is more than skin-deep +now. One can’t go through what I have gone through these last few terrifying +days, Sheila, unchanged. They have played the devil with my body; now begins +the tampering with my mind. Not even Danton knows how it will end. But shall I +tell you why you won’t, why you can’t answer me that one question—him or me? +Shall I tell you?’ +</p> + +<p> +Sheila slowly raised her eyes. +</p> + +<p> +‘It is because, my dear, you don’t care the ghost of a straw for either. That +one—he was worn out long ago, and we never knew it. I know it now. Time and the +sheer going-on of day by day, without either of us guessing at it, wore that +down till it had no more meaning for you or me than any other faded remembrance +in this interminable footling with truth that we call life. And this one—the +whole abject meaning of it lies simply in the fact that it has pierced down and +shown us up. I had no courage. I couldn’t see how feeble a hold I had on +life—just one’s friends’ opinions. It was all at second hand. What I want to +know now is—leave me out; don’t think, or care, or regard my living-on one +shadow of an iota—all I ask is, What am I to do for you?’ He turned away and +stood staring down at the cinders in the fireless grate. +</p> + +<p> +‘I answer that mad wicked outburst with one plain question,’ said a low, +trembling voice; ‘did you or did you not go to Widderstone yesterday?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I did go.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘You sat there, just as you said you sat before; and with all your heart and +soul strove to regain—yourself?’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford lifted a still, colourless face into the sunlight. ‘No,’ he said; ‘I +spent the evening at the house of a friend.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Then I say it is infamous. You cast all this on me. You have brought me into +contempt and poisoned Alice’s whole life. You dream and idle on just as you +used to do, without the least care or thought or consideration for others; and +go out in this condition—go out absolutely unashamed—to spend the evening at a +friend’s. Peculiar friends they must be. Why, really, Arthur, you must be mad!’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford paused. Like a flock of sheep streaming helter-skelter before the onset +of a wolf were the thoughts that a moment before had seemed so orderly and +sober. +</p> + +<p> +‘Not mad—possessed,’ he said softly. +</p> + +<p> +‘And I add this,’ cried Sheila, as it were out of a tragic mask, ‘somewhere in +the past, whether of your own life, or of the lives of those who brought you +into the world—the world which you pretend so conveniently to despise—somewhere +is hidden some miserable secret. God visits all sins. On you has fallen at last +the payment. <i>That</i> I believe. You can’t run away, any more than a child +can run away from the cupboard it has been locked into for a punishment. Who’s +going to hear you now? You have deliberately refused to make a friend of me. +Fight it out alone, then!’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford heard the door close, and the dying away of the sound that had been the +unceasing accompaniment of all these later years—the rustling of his wife’s +skirts, her crisp, authoritative footstep. And he turned towards the flooding +sunlight that streamed in on the upturned surface of the looking-glass. No +clear decisive thought came into his mind, only a vague recognition that so far +as Sheila was concerned this was the end. No regret, no remorse visited him. He +was just alone again, that was all—alone, as in reality he had always been +alone, without having the sense or power to see or to acknowledge it. All he +had said had been the mere flotsam of the moment, and now it stood stark and +irrevocable between himself and the past. +</p> + +<p> +He sat down dazed and stupid. Again and again a struggling recollection tried +to obtrude itself; again and again he beat it back. And rather for something to +distract his attention than for any real interest or enlightenment he might +find in its pages, he took out the grimy dog’s-eared book that Herbert had +given him, and turned slowly over the leaves till he came to Sabathier once +more. Snatches of remembrance of their long talk returned to him, but just as +that dark, water-haunted house had seemed to banish remembrance and the reality +of the room in which he now sat, and of the old familiar life; so now the +house, the faces of yesterday seemed in their turn unreal, almost spectral, and +the thick print on the smudgy page no more significant than a story one reads +and throws away. +</p> + +<p> +But a moment’s comparison in the glass of the two faces side by side suddenly +sharpened his attention—the resemblance was so oddly arresting, and yet, and +yet, so curiously inconclusive. There was then something of the stolid old +Saxon left, he thought. Or had it been regained? Which was it? Not merely the +complexity of the question, but a half-conscious distaste of attempting to face +it, set him reading very slowly and laboriously, for his French was little more +than fragmentary recollection, the first few pages of the life of this buried +Sabathier. But with a disinclination almost amounting to aversion he made very +slow progress. Many of the words were meaningless to him, and every other +moment he found himself listening with intense concentration for the least hint +of what Sheila was doing, of what was going on in the house beneath him. He had +not very long to wait. He was sitting with his head leaning on his hand, the +book unheeded beneath the other on the table, when the door opened again behind +him, and Sheila entered. She stood for a moment, calm and dignified, looking +down on him through her veil. +</p> + +<p> +‘Please understand, Arthur, that I am not taking this step in pique, or even in +anger. It would serve no purpose to go on like this—this incessant heedlessness +and recrimination. There have been mistakes, misconceptions, perhaps, on both +sides. To me naturally yours are most conspicuous. That need not, however, +blind me to my own.’ +</p> + +<p> +She paused in vain for an answer. +</p> + +<p> +‘Think the whole thing over candidly and quietly,’ she began again in a quiet +rapid voice. ‘Have you really shown the slightest regard, I won’t say for me, +or even for Alice, but for just the obvious difficulties and—and proprieties of +our position? I have given up as far as I can brooding on and on over the same +horrible impossible thoughts. I withdraw unreservedly what I said just now +about punishment. Whatever the evidence, it is not even a wife’s place to judge +like that. You will forgive me that?’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford did not turn his head. ‘Of course,’ he said, looking rather vacantly +out of the window, ‘it was only in the heat of the moment, Sheila; though, who +knows? it may be true.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Well,’ she took hold of the great brass knob at the foot of the bed with one +gloved hand—‘well, I feel it is my duty to withdraw it. Apart from it, I see +only too clearly that even though all that has happened in these last few days +was in reality nothing but a horrible nightmare, I see that even then what you +have said about our married life together can never be recalled. You have told +me quite deliberately that for years past your life has been nothing but a +pretence—a sham. You implied that mine had been too. Honestly, I was not aware +of it, Arthur. But supposing all that has happened to you had been merely what +might happen at any moment to anybody, some actual defacement (you will forgive +me suggesting such a horrible thing)—why, if what you say is true, even in that +case my sympathy would have been only a continual fret and annoyance to you. +And this—this change, I own, is infinitely harder to bear. It would be an +outrage on common sense and on all that we hold seemly and—and sacred in life, +even in some trumpery story. You do, you must see all that, Arthur?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Oh yes,’ said Lawford, narrowing his eyes to pierce through the sunlight, ‘I +see all that.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Then we need not go over it all again. Whatever others may say, or think, I +shall still, at least so long as nothing occurs to the contrary, keep firmly to +my present convictions. Mr Bethany has assured me repeatedly that he has no—no +misgivings; that he understands. And even if I still doubted, which I don’t, +Arthur, though it would be rather trying to have to accept one’s husband at +second-hand, as it were, I should have to be satisfied. I dare say even such an +unheard-of thing as what we are discussing now, or something equally ghastly, +does occur occasionally. In foreign countries, perhaps. I have not studied such +things enough to say. We were all very much restricted in our reading as +children, and I honestly think, not unwisely. It is enough for the present to +repeat that I do believe, and that whatever may happen—and I know absolutely +nothing about the procedure in such cases—but whatever may happen, I shall +still be loyal; I shall always have your interests at heart.’ Her words +faltered and she turned her head away. ‘You did love me once, Arthur, I can’t +forget that.’ The contralto voice trembled ever so little, and the gloved hand +smoothed gently the brass knob beneath. +</p> + +<p> +‘If,’ said Lawford, resting his face on his hands, and curiously watching the +while his moving reflection in the looking-glass before him—‘if I said I still +loved you, what then? +</p> + +<p> +‘But you have already denied it, Arthur.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes; but if I said that that too was said only in haste, that brooding over +the trouble this—this metamorphosis was bringing on us all had driven me almost +beyond endurance: supposing that I withdrew all that, and instead said now that +I do still love you, just as I—’ he turned a little, and turned back again, +‘like this?’ +</p> + +<p> +Sheila paused. ‘Could <i>any</i> woman answer such a question?’ she almost +sighed at last. +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes, but,’ Lawford pressed on, in a voice almost naive and stubborn as a +child’s, ‘If I tried to—to make you? I did once, Sheila.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I can’t, I can’t conceive such a position. Surely that alone is almost as +frantic as it is heartless! Is it, is it even right?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Well, I have not actually asked it. I own,’ he added moodily, almost under his +breath, ‘it would be—dangerous.... But there, Sheila, this poor old mask of +mine is wearing out. I am somehow convinced of that. What will be left, God +only knows. You were saying—’ He rose abruptly. ‘Please, please sit down,’ he +said; ‘I did not notice you were standing.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I shall not keep you a moment,’ she answered hurriedly; ‘I will sit here. The +truth is, Arthur,’ she began again almost solemnly, ‘apart from all sentiment +and—and good intentions, my presence here only harasses you and keeps you back. +I am not so bound up in myself that I cannot realise <i>that</i>. The +consequence is that after calmly—and I hope considerately—thinking the whole +thing over, I have come to the conclusion that it would arouse very little +comment, the least possible perhaps in the circumstances, if I just went away +for a few days. You are not in any sense ill. In fact, I have never known you +so—so robust, so energetic. You will be alone: Mr Bethany, perhaps.... You +could go out and come in just as you pleased. Possibly,’ Sheila smiled frankly +beneath her veil, ‘even this Dr Ferguson you have invented will be a help. It’s +only the servants that remain to be considered.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I should prefer to be quite alone.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Then do not worry about <i>them</i>. I can easily explain. And if you would +not mind letting her in, Mrs Gull can come in every other day or so just to +keep things in order. She’s entirely trustworthy and discreet. Or perhaps, if +you would prefer—’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Mrs Gull will do nicely, Sheila. It’s very good of you to have given me so +much thought.’ A long and rather arduous pause followed. +</p> + +<p> +‘Oh, one other thing, Arthur. You sent out to Mr Critchett—do you remember?—the +night you first came home. I think, too, after the first awful shock, when we +were sitting in our bedroom, you actually referred to—to violent measures. You +will promise me, I may perhaps at least ask that, you will promise me on your +word of honour, for Alice’s sake, if not for mine, to do nothing rash.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes, yes,’ said Lawford, sinking lower even than he had supposed possible into +the thin and lightless chill of ennui—‘nothing rash.’ +</p> + +<p> +Sheila rose with a sigh only in part suppressed. ‘I have not seen Mr Bethany +again. I think, however, it would be better to let Harry know; I mean, dear, of +your derangement. After all, he is one of the family—at least, of mine. He will +not interfere. He would, perhaps quite naturally, be hurt if we did not take +him into our confidence. Otherwise there is no pressing cause for haste, at +least for another week or so. After that, I suppose, something will have to be +done. Then there’s Mr Wedderburn; wouldn’t it be as well to let him know that +at least for the present you are quite unable to think of returning to town? +That, too, in time will have to be arranged, I suppose, if nothing happens +meanwhile; I mean if things don’t come right. And I do hope, Arthur, you will +not set your mind too closely on what may only prove false hopes. This is all +intensely painful to me; of course, to us both.’ +</p> + +<p> +Again Lawford, even though he did not turn to confront it, became conscious of +the black veil turned towards him tentatively, speculatively, impenetrably. +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I’ll write to Wedderburn; he’s had his ups and downs too.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I always rather fancied so,’ said Sheila reflectively, ‘he looks rather a—a +restless man. Oh, and then again,’ she broke off quickly, ‘there’s the question +of money. I suppose—it is only a conjecture—I suppose it would be better to do +nothing in that direction just for the present. Ada has now gone to the Bank. +Fifty pounds, Arthur; it is out of my own private account—do you think that +will be enough, just, of course, for your <i>present</i> needs?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘As a bribe, hush-money, or a thank-offering, Sheila?’ murmured her husband +wearily. +</p> + +<p> +‘I don’t follow you,’ replied the discreet voice from beneath the veil. +</p> + +<p> +He did actually turn this time and glance steadily over his shoulder. ‘How long +are you going for? and where?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I proposed to go to my cousin’s, Bettie Lovat’s; that is, of course, if you +have no objection. It’s near; it will be a long-deferred visit; and she need +know very little. And, of course, if for the least thing in the world you +should want me, there I am within call, as it were. And you will write? We +<i>are</i> acting for the best, Arthur?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘So long as it is your best, Sheila.’ +</p> + +<p> +Sheila pondered. ‘You think, you mean, they’ll all say I ought to have stayed. +Candidly, I can’t see it in that light. Surely every experience of life proves +that in intimate domestic matters, and especially in those between husband and +wife, only the parties concerned have any means of judging what is best for +them? It has been our experience at any rate: though I must in fairness confess +that, outwardly at least, I haven’t had much of that kind of thing to complain +of.’ Sheila paused again for a reply. +</p> + +<p> +‘What kind of thing?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Domestic experience, dear.’ +</p> + +<p> +The house was quiet. There was not a sound stirring in the still sunny road of +orchards and discreet and drowsy villas. A long silence followed, immensely +active and alert on the one side, almost morbidly lethargic so far as the +stooping figure in front of the looking-glass was concerned. At last the last +haunting question came in a kind of croak, as if only by a supreme effort could +it be compelled to produce itself for consideration. +</p> + +<p> +‘And Alice, Sheila?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Alice, dear, of course goes with <i>me</i>.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘You realise,’ he stirred uneasily, ‘you realise it may be final.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘My dear Arthur,’ cried Sheila, ‘it is surely, apart from mere delicacy, a +parental obligation to screen the poor child from the shock. Could she be at +such a time in any better keeping than her mother’s? At present she only +vaguely guesses. To know definitely that her father, infinitely worse than +death, had—had—Oh, is it possible to realise anything in this awful cloud? It +would kill her outright.’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford made no stir. The quietest of raps came at the door. ‘The money from +the Bank, ma’am,’ said a faint voice. +</p> + +<p> +Sheila carefully opened the door a few inches. She laid the blue envelope on +the dressing-table at her husband’s elbow. ‘You had better perhaps count it,’ +she said in a low voice—‘forty in notes, the rest in gold,’ and narrowed her +eyes beneath her veil upon her husband’s very peculiar method of forgetting his +responsibilities. +</p> + +<p> +‘French?’ she said with a nod. ‘How very quaint.’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford’s eyes fell and rested gravely on the dingy page of Herbert’s +mean-looking bundle of print. A queer feeling of cold crept over him. ‘Yes,’ he +said vaguely, ‘French,’ and hopelessly failed to fill in the silence that +seemed like some rather sleek nocturnal creature quietly waiting to be fed. +</p> + +<p> +Sheila swept softly towards the door. ‘Well, Arthur, I think that is all. The +servants will have gone by this evening. I have ordered a carriage for +half-past twelve. Perhaps you would first write down anything that occurs to +you to be necessary? Perhaps, too, it would be better if Dr Simon were told +that we shall not need him any more, that you are thinking of a complete change +of scene, a voyage. He is obviously useless. Besides, Mr Bethany, I think, is +going to discuss a specialist with you. I have written him a little note, just +briefly explaining. Shall I write to Dr Simon too?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘You remember everything,’ said Lawford, and it seemed to him it was a remark +he had heard ages and ages ago. ‘It’s only this money, Sheila; will you please +take that away?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Take it away?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I think, Sheila, if I do take a voyage I should almost prefer to work my +passage. As for a mere “change of scene,” that’s quite uncostly.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘It is only your face, Arthur,’ said Sheila solemnly, ‘that suggest these +wicked stabs. Some day you will perhaps repent of every one.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘It is possible, Sheila; we none of us stand still, you know. One rips open a +lid sometimes and the wax face rots before one’s eyes. Take back your blue +envelope; and thank you for thinking of me. It’s always the woman of the house +that has the head.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I wish,’ said Sheila almost pathetically, and yet with a faint quaver of +resignation, ‘I wish it could be said that the man of the house sometimes has +the heart. Think it over, Arthur!’ +</p> + +<p> +Sheila, with her husband’s luncheon tray, brought also her farewells. Lawford +surveyed, not without a faint, shy stirring of incredulity, the superbly +restrained presence. He stood before her dry-lipped, inarticulate, a schoolboy +caught redhanded in the shabbiest of offences. +</p> + +<p> +‘It is your wish then that I go, Arthur?’ she said pleadingly. +</p> + +<p> +He handed her her money without a word. +</p> + +<p> +‘Very well, Arthur; if you won’t take it,’ she said. ‘I should scarcely have +thought this the occasion for mere pride.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘The tenth,’ she continued, as she squeezed the envelope into her purse, with +only the least hardening of voice, ‘although I daresay you have not troubled to +remember it—the tenth will be the eighteenth anniversary of our wedding-day. It +makes parting, however advisable, and though only for the few days we should +think nothing of in happier circumstances, a little harder to bear. But there, +all will come right. You will see things in a different light, perhaps. Words +may wound, but time will heal.’ But even as she now looked closely into his +colourless sunken face some distant memory seemed to well up irresistibly—the +memory of eyes just as ingenuous, and as unassuming that even in claiming her +love had expressed only their stolid unworthiness. +</p> + +<p> +‘Did you know it? have you seen it?’ she said, stooping forward a little. ‘I +believe in spite of all....’ He gazed on solemnly, almost owlishly, out of his +fading mask. +</p> + +<p> +‘Wait till Mr Bethany tells you; you will believe it perhaps from him.’ He saw +the grey-gloved hand a little reluctantly lifted towards him. +</p> + +<p> +‘Good-bye, Sheila,’ he said, and turned mechanically back to the window. +</p> + +<p> +She hesitated, listening to a small far-away voice that kept urging her with an +almost frog-like pertinacity to do, to say something, and yet as stubbornly +would not say what; and she was gone. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap15"></a> +CHAPTER FIFTEEN</h2> + +<p> +Raying and gleaming in the sunlight the hired landau drove up to the gate. +Lawford, peeping between the blinds, looked down on the coachman, with reins +hanging loosely from his red squat-thumbed hand, seated in his tight livery and +indescribable hat on the faded cushions. One thing only was in his mind; and it +was almost with an audible cry that he turned towards the figure that edged, +white and trembling, into the chill room, to fling herself into his arms. +‘Don’t look at me,’ he begged her, ‘only remember, dearest, I would rather have +died down there and been never seen again than have given you pain. Run—run, +your mother’s calling. Write to me, think of me; good-bye!’ +</p> + +<p> +He threw himself on the bed and lay there till evening—till the door had shut +gently behind the last rat to leave the sinking ship. All the clearness, the +calmness were gone again. Round and round in dizzy sickening flare and clatter +his thoughts whirled. Contempt, fear, loathing, blasphemy, laughter, longing: +there was no end. Death was no end. There was no meaning, no refuge, no hope, +no possible peace. To give up was to go to perdition: to go forward was to go +mad. And even madness—he sat up with trembling lips in the twilight—madness +itself was only a state, only a state. You might be bereaved, and the pain and +hopelessness of that would pass. You might be cast out, betrayed, deserted, and +still be you, still find solitude lovely and in a brave face a friend. But +madness!—it surged in on him with all the clearness and emptiness of a dream. +And he sat quite still, his hand clutching the bedclothes, his head askew, +waiting for the sound of footsteps, for the presences and the voices that have +their thin-walled dwelling beneath the shallow crust of consciousness. +</p> + +<p> +Inky blackness drifted up in wisps, in smoke before his eyes; he was powerless +to move, to cry out. There was no room to turn; no air to breathe. And yet +there was a low, continuous, never-varying stir as of an enormous wheel +whirling in the gloom. Countless infinitesimal faces arched like glimmering +pebbles the huge dim-coloured vault above his head. He heard a voice above the +monstrous rustling of the wheel, clamouring, calling him back. He was hastening +headlong, muttering to himself his own flat meaningless name, like a child +repeating as he runs his errand. And then as if in a charmed cold pool he awoke +and opened his eyes again on the gathering darkness of the great bedroom, and +heard a quick, importunate, long-continued knocking on the door below, as of +some one who had already knocked in vain. +</p> + +<p> +Cramped and heavy-limbed, he felt his way across the room and lit a candle. He +stood listening awhile: his eyes fixed on the door that hung a little open. All +in the room seemed acutely fantastically still. The flame burned dim, enisled +in the sluggish air. He stole slowly to the door, looked out, and again +listened. Again the knocking broke out, more impetuously and yet with a certain +restraint and caution. Shielding the flame of his candle in the shell of his +left hand, Lawford moved slowly, with chin uplifted, to the stairs. He bent +forward a little, and stood motionless and drawn up, the pupils of his eyes +slowly contracting and expanding as he gazed down into the carpeted vacant +gloom; past the dim louring presence that had fallen back before him. +</p> + +<p> +His mouth opened. ‘Who’s there?’ at last he called. +</p> + +<p> +‘Thank God, thank God!’ he heard Mr Bethany mutter. ‘I mustn’t call, Lawford,’ +came a hurried whisper as if the old gentleman were pressing his lips to speak +through the letter-box. ‘Come down and open the door; there’s a good fellow! +I’ve been knocking no end of a time.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes, I am coming,’ said Lawford. He shut his mouth and held his breath, and +stair by stair he descended, driving steadily before him the crouching, +gloating menacing shape, darkly lifted up before him against the darkness, +contending the way with him. +</p> + +<p> +‘Are you ill? Are you hurt? Has anything happened, Lawford?’ came the anxious +old voice again, striving in vain to be restrained. +</p> + +<p> +‘No, no,’ muttered Lawford. ‘I am coming; coming slowly.’ He paused to breathe, +his hands trembling, his hair lank with sweat, and still with eyes wide open he +descended against the phantom lurking in the darkness—an adversary that, if he +should but for one moment close his lids, he felt would master sanity and +imagination with its evil. ‘So long as you don’t get in,’ he heard himself +muttering, ‘so long as you don’t get <i>in</i>, my friend!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘What’s that you’re saying?’ came up the muffled, querulous voice; ‘I can’t for +the life of me hear, my boy.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Nothing, nothing,’ came softly the answer from the foot of the stairs. ‘I was +only speaking to myself.’ +</p> + +<p> +Deliberately, with candle held rigidly on a level with his eyes, Lawford pushed +forward a pace or two into the airless, empty drawing-room, and grasped the +handle of the door. He gazed in awhile, a black oblique shadow flung across his +face, his eyes fixed like an animal’s, then drew the door steadily towards him. +And suddenly some power that had held him tense seemed to fail. He thrust out +his head, and, his face quivering with fear and loathing, spat defiance as if +in a passion of triumph into the gloom. +</p> + +<p> +Still muttering, he shut the door and turned the key. In another moment his +light was gleaming out on the grey perturbed face and black narrow shoulders of +his visitor. +</p> + +<p> +‘You gave me quite a fright,’ said the old man almost angrily; ‘have you hurt +your foot, or something?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘It was very dark,’ said Lawford, ‘down the stairs.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘What!’ said Mr Bethany still more angrily, blinking out of his unspectacled +eyes; ‘has she cut off the gas, then?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘You got the note?’ said Lawford, unmoved. +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes, yes; I got the note.... Gone?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Oh, yes; all gone. It was my choice. I preferred it so.’ +</p> + +<p> +Mr Bethany sat down on one of the hard old wooden chairs that stood on either +side of the lofty hall, and breathing rather thickly, rested his hands on his +knees. ‘What’s happened?’ he inquired, looking up into the candle. ‘I forgot my +glasses, old fool that I am, and can’t, my dear fellow, see you very plainly. +But your voice—’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I think,’ said Lawford, ‘I think it’s beginning to come back.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘What, the whole thing! Oh no, my dear, dear man; be frank with me; not the +whole thing?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes,’ said Lawford, ‘the whole thing—very, very gradually, imperceptibly. I +think even Sheila noticed. But I rather feel it than see it; that is all.... +I’m cornering him.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Him?’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford jerked his candle as if towards some definite goal. ‘In time,’ he said. +</p> + +<p> +The two faces with the candle between them seemed as it were to gain light each +from the other. +</p> + +<p> +‘Well, well,’ said Mr Bethany, ‘every man for himself, Lawford; it’s the only +way. But what’s going to be done? We must be cautious; must think of—of the +others?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Oh, that,’ said Lawford; ‘she’s going to squeeze me out.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘You’ve—squabbled? Oh, but my dear, honest old, <i>honest</i> old idiot, there +are scores of families here in this parish, within a stone’s throw, that +squabble, wrangle, all but politely tear each other’s eyes out, every day of +their earthly lives. It’s perfectly natural. Where should we poor old +busybodies be else. Peace on earth we bring, and it’s mainly between husband +and wife.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes,’ said Lawford, ‘but you see, this was not our earthly life. It was +between <i>us</i>.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Listen, listen to the dear mystic!’ exclaimed the old creature scoffingly. +‘What depths we’re touching. Here’s the first serious break of his lifetime, +and he’s gone stark staring transcendental. Ah well.’ He paused and glanced +quickly about him, with his curious bird-like poise of head. ‘But you’re not +alone here?’ he inquired suddenly; ‘not absolutely alone?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes,’ said Lawford. ‘But there’s plenty to think about—and read. I haven’t +thought or read for years.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘No, nor I; after thirty, my dear boy, one merely annotates, and the book’s +called Life. Bless me, his solemn old voice is grinding epigrams out of even +this poor old parochial barrel-organ. You don’t suppose, you cannot be +supposing you are the only serious person in the world? What’s more, it’s only +skin deep.’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford smiled. ‘Skin deep. But think quietly over it; you’ll see I’m done.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Come here,’ said Mr Bethany. ‘Where’s the whiskey, where’s the cigars? You +shall smoke and drink, and I’ll watch. If it weren’t for a pitiful old stomach, +I’d join you. Come on!’ He led the way into the dining-room. +</p> + +<p> +He looked sparer, more wizened and sinewy than ever as he stooped to open the +sideboard. ‘Where on earth do they keep everything?’ he was muttering to +himself. +</p> + +<p> +Lawford put the candlestick down on the table. ‘There’s only one thing,’ he +said, watching his visitor’s rummaging; ‘what precisely do you think they will +do with me?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Look here, Lawford,’ snapped Mr Bethany; ‘I’ve come round here, hooting +through your letter-box, to talk sense, not sentiment. Why has your wife +deserted you? Without a servant, without a single—It’s perfectly monstrous.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘On my word of honour, I prefer it so. I couldn’t have gone on. Alone I all but +forget this—this lupus. Every turn of her little finger reminded me of it. We +are all of us alone, whether we know it or not; you said so yourself. And it’s +better to realize it stark and unconfused. Besides, you have no idea what—what +odd things.... There may be; there <i>is</i> something on the other side. I’ll +win through to that.’ +</p> + +<p> +Mr Bethany had been listening attentively. He scrambled up from his knees with +a half-empty syphon of sodawater. ‘See here, Lawford,’ he said; ‘if you really +want to know what’s your most insidious and most dangerous symptom just now, it +is spiritual pride. You’ve won what you think a domestic victory; and you can +scarcely bear the splendour. Oh, you may shrug! Pray, what <i>is</i> this +“other side” which the superior double-faced creature’s going to win through to +now?’ He rapped it out almost bitterly, almost contemptuously. +</p> + +<p> +Lawford hardly heard the question. Before his eyes had suddenly arisen the +peace, the friendly unquestioning stillness, the thunderous lullaby old as the +grave. ‘It’s only a fancy. It seemed I could begin again.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Well, look here,’ said Mr Bethany, his whole face suddenly lined and grey with +age. ‘You can’t. It’s the one solitary thing I’ve got to say, as I’ve said it +to myself morn, noon, and night these scores of years. You can’t begin again; +it’s all a delusion and a snare. You say we’re alone. So we are. The world’s a +dream, a stage, a mirage, a rack, call it what you will—but <i>you</i> don’t +change, <i>you’re</i> no illusion. There’s no crying off for <i>you</i> no +ravelling out, no clean leaves. You’ve got this—this trouble, this +affliction—my dear, dear fellow what shall I say to tell you how I grieve and +groan for you oh yes, and actually laughed, I confess it, a vile hysterical +laughter, to think of it. You’ve got this almost intolerable burden to bear; +it’s come like a thief in the night; but bear it you must, and <i>alone!</i> +They say death’s a going to bed; I doubt it; but anyhow life’s a long +undressing. We came in puling and naked, and every stitch must come off before +we get out again. We must stand on our feet in all our Rabelaisian nakedness, +and watch the world fade. Well then, and not another word of sense shall you +worm out of my worn-out old brains after today—all I say is, don’t give in! +Why, if you stood here now, freed from this devilish disguise, the old, fat, +sluggish fellow that sat and yawned his head off under my eyes in his pew the +Sunday before last, if I know anything about human nature I’d say it to your +face, and a fig for your vanity and resignation—your last state would be worse +than the first. There!’ +</p> + +<p> +He bunched up a big white handkerchief and mopped it over his head. ‘That’s +done,’ he said, ‘and we won’t go back. What I want to know now is what are you +going to do? Where are you sleeping? What are you going to think about? I’ll +stay—yes, yes, that’s what it must be: I must stay. And I detest strange beds. +I’ll stay, you <i>sha’n’t</i> be alone. Do you hear me, Lawford?—you +<i>sha’n’t</i> be alone!’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford gazed gravely. ‘There is just one little thing I want to ask you before +you go. I’ve wormed out an extraordinary old French book; and—just as you +say—to pass the time, I’ve been having a shot at translating it. But I’m +frightfully rusty; it’s old French; would you mind having a look?’ +</p> + +<p> +Mr Bethany blinked and listened. He tried for the twentieth time to judge his +friend’s eyes, to gain as best he could some sustained and unobserved glance at +this baffling face. ‘Where is your precious French book?’ he said irritably. +</p> + +<p> +‘It’s upstairs.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Fire away, then!’ Lawford rose and glanced about the room. ‘What, no light +there either?’ snapped Mr Bethany. ‘Take this; <i>I</i> don’t mind the dark. +There’ll be plenty of that for me soon.’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford hesitated at the door, looking rather strangely back. ‘No,’ he said, +‘there are matches upstairs.’ He shut the door after him. The darkness seemed +cold and still as water. He went slowly up, with eyes fixed wide on the +floating luminous gloom, and out of memory seemed to gather, as faintly as in +the darkness which they had exorcised for him, the strange pitiful eyes of the +night before. And as he mounted a chill, terrible, physical peace seemed to +steal over him. +</p> + +<p> +Mr Bethany was sitting as he had left him, looking steadily on the floor, when +Lawford returned. He flattened out the book on the table with a sniff of +impatience. And dragging the candle nearer, and stooping his nose close to the +fusty print, he began to read. +</p> + +<p> +‘Was this in the house?’ he inquired presently. +</p> + +<p> +‘No,’ said Lawford; ‘it was lent to me by a friend—Herbert.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘H’m! don’t know him. Anyhow, precious poor stuff this is. This Sabathier, +whoever he is, seems to be a kind of clap-trap eighteenth-century adventurer +who thought the world would be better off, apparently, for a long account of +all his sentimental amours. Rousseau, with a touch of Don Quixote in his +composition, and an echo of that prince of bogies, Poe! What, in the name of +wonder, induced you to fix on this for your holiday reading?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Sabathier’s alive, isn’t he?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I never said he wasn’t. He’s a good deal too much alive for my old wits, with +his Mam’selle This and Madame the Other; interesting enough, perhaps, for the +professional literary nose with a taste for patchouli.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Yet I suppose even that is not a very rare character?’ Mr Bethany peered up +from the dingy book at his ingenuous questioner. ‘I should say decidedly that +the fellow was a <i>very</i> rare character, so long as by rare you don’t mean +good. It’s one of the dullest stupidities of the present day, my dear fellow, +to dote on a man simply because he’s different from the rest of us. Once a man +strays out of the common herd, he’s more likely to meet wolves in the thickets +than angels. From what I can gather in just these few pages this Sabathier +appears to have been an amorous, adventurous, emotional Frenchman, who went to +the dogs as easily and as rapidly as his own nature and his period allowed. And +I should say, Lawford, that he made precious bad reading for a poor old +troubled hermit like yourself at the present moment.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘There’s a portrait of him a few pages back.’ +</p> + +<p> +Mr Bethany, with some little impatience, turned back to the engraving. +‘“Nicholas de Sabathier,”’s he muttered. ‘“De,” indeed!’ He poked in at the +foxy print with narrowed eyes. ‘I don’t deny it’s a striking, even perhaps, a +rather taking face. I don’t deny it.’ He gazed on with an even more acute +concentration, and looked up sharply. ‘Look here, Lawford, what in the name of +wonder—what trick are you playing on me now?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Trick?’ said Lawford; and the world fell with the tiniest plash in the +silence, like a vivid little float upon the surface of a shadowy pool. +</p> + +<p> +The old face flushed. ‘What conceivable bearing, I say, has this dead and gone +old roué on us now?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘You don’t think, then, you see any resemblance—<i>any</i> resemblance at all?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Resemblance?’ repeated Mr Bethany in a flat voice, and without raising his +face again to meet Lawford’s direct scrutiny. ‘Resemblance to whom?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘To me? To me, as I am?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘But even, my dear fellow (forgive my dull old brains!), even if there was just +the faintest superficial suggestion of—of that; what then?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Why,’ said Lawford, ‘he’s buried in Widderstone.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Buried in Widderstone?’ The keen childlike blue eyes looked almost stealthily +up across the book; the old man sat without speaking, so still that it might +even be supposed he himself was listening for a quiet distant footfall. +</p> + +<p> +‘He is buried in the grave beside which I fell asleep,’ said Lawford; ‘all +green and still and broken,’ he added faintly. ‘You remember,’ he went on in a +repressed voice—‘you remember you asked me if there was anybody else in sight, +any eavesdropper? You don’t think—him?’ +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Bethany pushed the book a few inches away from him. ‘Who, did you say—who +was it you said put the thing into your head? A queer friend surely?’ he paused +helplessly. ‘And how, pray, do you know,’ he began again more firmly, ‘even if +there is a Sabathier buried at Widderstone, how do you know it is this +Sabathier? It’s not, I think,’ he added boldly, ‘a very uncommon name; with two +<i>b</i>’s at any rate. Whereabouts is the grave?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Quite down at the bottom, under the trees. And the little seat I told you of +is there, too, where I fell asleep. You see,’ he explained, ‘the grave’s almost +isolated; I suppose because he killed himself.’ +</p> + +<p> +Mr Bethany clasped his knuckled fingers on the tablecloth. ‘It’s no good,’ he +concluded after a long pause; ‘the fellow’s got up into my head. I can’t think +him out. We must thrash it out quietly in the morning with the blessed sun at +the window; not this farthing dip. To me the whole idea is as revolting as it +is incredible. Why, above a century—no, no! And on the other hand, how easily +one’s fancy builds! A few straws and there’s a nest and squawking fledglings, +all complete. Is that why—is that why that good, practical wife of yours and +all your faithful household have absconded? Does it’—he threw up his head as if +towards the house above them—‘does it <i>reek</i> with him?’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford shook his head. ‘She hasn’t seen him: not—not apart. I haven’t told +her.’ +</p> + +<p> +Mr Bethany tossed the hugger-mugger of pamphlets across the table. ‘Then, for +simple sanity’s sake, don’t. Hide it; burn it; put the thing completely out of +your mind. A friend! Who, where is this wonderful friend?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Not very far from Widderstone. He lives—practically alone.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘And all that stumbling and muttering on the stairs?’ he leant forward almost +threateningly. ‘There isn’t anybody here, Lawford?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Oh, no,’ said Lawford. ‘We are practically alone with this, you know,’ he +pointed to the book, and smiled frankly, however faintly. +</p> + +<p> +Again Mr Bethany sank into a fixed yet uneasy reverie, and again shook himself +and raised his eyes. +</p> + +<p> +‘Well then,’ he said, in a voice all but morose in its fretfullness, ‘what I +suggest is that first you keep quiet here; and next, that you write and get +your wife back. You say you are better. I think you said she herself noticed a +slight improvement. Isn’t it just exactly as I foresaw? And yet she’s gone! But +that’s not our business. Get her back. And don’t for a single instant waste a +thought on the other; not for a single instant, I implore you, Lawford. And in +a week the whole thing will be no more than a dreary, preposterous dream.... +You don’t <i>answer</i> me!’ he cried impulsively. +</p> + +<p> +‘But can one so easily forget a dream like this?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘You don’t speak out, Lawford; you mean <i>she</i> won’t.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘It must at least seem to have been in part of my own seeking, or contriving; +or at any rate—she said it—of my own hereditary or unconscious deserving.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘She said that!’ Mr Bethany sat back. ‘I see, I see,’ he said. ‘I’m nothing but +a fumbling old meddler. And there was I, not ten minutes ago, preaching for all +I was worth on a text I knew nothing about. God bless me, Lawford, how long we +take a-learning. I’ll say no more. But what an illusion. To think this—this—he +laid a long lean hand at arm’s length flat upon the table towards his +friend—‘to think this is our old jog-trot Arthur Lawford! From henceforth I +throw you over, you old wolf in sheep’s wool. I wash my hands of you. And now +where am I going to sleep?’ +</p> + +<p> +He covered up his age and weariness for an instant with a small crooked hand. +</p> + +<p> +Lawford took a deep breath. ‘You’re going, old friend, to sleep at home. And +I—I’m going to give you my arm to the Vicarage gate. Here I am, immeasurably +relieved, fitter than I’ve been since I was a dolt of a schoolboy. On my word +of honour: I can’t say why, but I am. I don’t care <i>that</i>, vicar, +honestly—puffed up with spiritual pride. If a man can’t sleep with pride for a +bed-fellow, well, he’d better try elsewhere. It’s no good; I’m as stubborn as a +mule; that’s at least a relic of the old Adam. I care no more,’ he raised his +voice firmly and gravely—‘I don’t care a jot for solitude, not a jot for all +the ghosts of all the catacombs!’ +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Bethany listened, grimly pursed up his lips. ‘Not a jot for all the ghosts +of all the catechisms!’ he muttered. ‘Nor the devil himself, I suppose?’ He +turned once more to glance sharply in the direction of the face he could so +dimly—and of set purpose—discern; and without a word trotted off into the hall. +Lawford followed with the candle. +</p> + +<p> +‘’Pon my word, you haven’t had a mouthful of supper. Let me forage; just a +quarter of an hour, eh?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Not me,’ said Mr Bethany; ‘if you won’t have me, home I go. I refuse to +encourage this miserable grass-widowering. What <i>would</i> they say? What +would the busybodies say? Ghouls and graves and shocking mysteries—Selina! +Sister Anne! Come on.’ +</p> + +<p> +He shuffled on his hat and caught firm hold of his knobbed umbrella. ‘Better +not leave a candle,’ he said. +</p> + +<p> +Lawford blew out the candle. +</p> + +<p> +‘What? What?’ called the old man suddenly. But no voice had spoken. +</p> + +<p> +A thin trickle of light from the lamp in the street stuck up through the +fanlight as, with a smile that could be described neither as mischievous, +saturnine, nor vindictive, and was yet faintly suggestive of all three, Lawford +quietly opened the drawing-room door and put down the candlestick on the floor +within. +</p> + +<p> +‘What on earth, my good man, are you fumbling after now?’ came the almost +fretful question from under the echoing porch. +</p> + +<p> +‘Coming, coming,’ said Lawford, and slammed the door behind them. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap16"></a> +CHAPTER SIXTEEN</h2> + +<p> +The first faint streaks of dawn were silvering across the stars when Lawford +again let himself into his deserted house. He stumbled down to the pantry and +cut himself a crust of bread and cheese, and ate it, sitting on the table, +watching the leafy eastern sky through the painted bars of the area window. He +munched on, hungry and tired. His night walk had cooled head and heart. Having +obstinately refused Mr Bethany’s invitation to sleep at the Vicarage, he had +sat down on an old low wall, and watched until his light had shone out at his +bedroom window. Then he had simply wandered on, past rustling glimmering +gardens, under the great timbers of yellowing elms, hardly thinking, hardly +aware of himself except as in a far-away vision of a sluggish insignificant +creature struggling across the tossed-up crust of an old, incomprehensible +world. +</p> + +<p> +The secret of his content in that long leisurely ramble had been that +repeatedly by a scarcely realised effort it had not lain in the direction of +Widderstone. And now, as he sat hungrily devouring his breakfast on the table +in the kitchen, with the daybreak comforting his eyes, he thought with a +positive mockery of that poor old night-thing he had given inch by inch into +the safe keeping of his pink and white drawing-room. Don Quixote, Poe, +Rousseau—they were familiar but not very significant labels to a mind that had +found very poor entertainment in reading. But they were at least representative +enough to set him wondering which of their influences it was that had inflated +with such a gaseous heroism the Lawford of the night before. He thought of +Sheila with a not unkindly smile, and of the rest. ‘I wonder what they’ll do?’ +had been a question almost as much in his mind during these last few hours as +had ‘What am I to do?’ in the first bout of his ‘visitation.’ +</p> + +<p> +But the ‘they’ was not very precisely visualised. He saw Sheila, and Harry, and +dainty pale-blue Bettie Lovat, and cautious old Wedderburn, and Danton, and +Craik, and cheery, gossipy Dr Sutherland, and the verger, Mr Dutton, and +Critchett, and the gardener, and Ada, and the whole vague populous host that +keep one as definitely in one’s place in the world’s economy as a firm-set pin +the camphored moth. What his place was to be only time could show. Meanwhile +there was in this loneliness at least a respite. +</p> + +<p> +Solitude!—he bathed his weary bones in it. He laved his eyelids in it, as in a +woodland brook after the heat of noon. He sat on in calmest reverie till his +hunger was satisfied. Then, scattering out his last crumbs to the birds from +the barred window, he climbed upstairs again, past his usual bedroom, past his +detested guest room, up into the narrow sweetness of Alice’s, and flinging +himself on her bed fell into a long and dreamless sleep. +</p> + +<p> +By ten next morning Lawford had bathed and dressed. And at half-past ten he got +up from Sheila’s fat little French dictionary and his Memoirs to answer Mrs +Gull’s summons on the area bell. The little woman stood with arms folded over +an empty and capacious bag, with an air of sustained melancholy on her friendly +face. She wished him a very nervous ‘Good morning,’ and dived down into the +kitchen. The hours dragged slowly by in a silence broken only by an occasional +ring at the bell. About three she emerged from the house and climbed the area +steps with her bag hooked over her arm. He watched the little black figure out +of sight, watched a man in a white canvas hat ascend the steps to push a +blue-printed circular through the letter-box. It had begun to rain a little. He +returned to the breakfast-room and with the window wide open to the rustling +coolness of the leaves, edged his way very slowly across from line to line of +the obscure French print. +</p> + +<p> +Sabathier none the less, and in spite of his unintelligible literariness, did +begin to take shape and consistency. The man himself, breathing, and thinking, +began to live for Lawford even in those few half-articulate pages, though not +in quite so formidable a fashion as Mr Bethany had summed him up. But as the +west began to lighten with the declining sun, the same old disquietude, the +same old friendless and foreboding ennui stole over Lawford’s solitude once +more. He shut his books, placed a candlestick and two boxes of matches on the +hall table, lit a bead of gas, and went out into the rainy-sweet streets again. +</p> + +<p> +At a mean little barber’s with a pole above his lettered door he went in to be +shaved. And a few steps further on he sat down at the crumb-littered counter of +a little baker’s shop to have some tea. It pleased him almost to childishness +to find how easily he could listen and even talk to the oiled and crimpy little +barber, and to the pretty, consumptive-looking, print-dressed baker’s wife. +Whatever his face might now be conniving at, the Arthur Lawford of last week +could never have hob-nobbed so affably with his social ‘inferiors.’ +</p> + +<p> +For no reason in the world, unless to spend a moment or two longer in the +friendly baker’s shop, he bought six-penny-worth of cakes. He watched them as +they were deposited one by one in the bag, and even asked for one sort to be +exchanged for another, flushing a little at the pretty compliment he had +ventured on. +</p> + +<p> +He climbed out of the shop, and paused on the wooden doorstep. ‘Do you happen +to know Mr Herbert Herbert’s?’ he said. +</p> + +<p> +The baker’s wife glanced up at him with clear, reflective eyes. ‘Mr +Herbert’s?—that must be some little way off, sir. I don’t know any such name, +and I know most, just round about like.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Well, yes, it is,’ said Lawford, rather foolishly; ‘I hardly know why I asked. +It’s past the churchyard at Widderstone.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Oh yes, sir,’ she encouraged him. +</p> + +<p> +‘A big, wooden-looking house.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Really, sir. Wooden?’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford looked into her face, but could find nothing more to say, so he smiled +again rather absently, and ascended into the street. +</p> + +<p> +He sat down outside the churchyard gate on the very bank where he had in the +sourness of the nettles first opened Sabathier’s Memoirs. The world lay still +beneath the pale sky. Presently the little fat rector walked up the hill, his +wrists still showing beneath his sleeves. Lawford meditatively watched him pass +by. A small boy with a switch, a tiny nose, and a swinging gallipot, his cheeks +lit with the sunset, followed soon after. Lawford beckoned him with his finger +and held out the bag of tarts. He watched him, half incredulous of his prize, +and with many a cautious look over his shoulder, pass out of sight. For a long +while he sat alone, only the evening birds singing out of the greenness and +silence of the churchyard. What a haunting inescapable riddle life was. +</p> + +<p> +Colour suddenly faded out of the light streaming between the branches. And +depression, always lying in ambush of the novelty of his freedom, began like +mist to rise above his restless thoughts. It was all so devilish empty—this +raft of the world floating under evening’s shadow. How many sermons had he +listened to, enriched with the simile of the ocean of life. Here they were, +come home to roost. He had fallen asleep, ineffectual sailor that he was, and a +thief out of the cloudy deep had stolen oar and sail and compass, leaving him +adrift amid the riding of the waves. +</p> + +<p> +‘Are they worth, do you think, quite a penny?’ suddenly inquired a quiet voice +in the silence. He looked up into the almost colourless face, into the grey +eyes beneath their clear narrow brows. +</p> + +<p> +‘I was thinking,’ he said, ‘what a curious thing life is, and wondering—’ +</p> + +<p> +‘The first half is well worth the penny—its originality! I can’t afford +twopence. So you must <i>give</i> me what you were wondering.’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford gazed rather blankly across the twilight fields. ‘I was wondering,’ he +said with an oddly naive candour, ‘how long it took one to sink.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘They say, you know,’ Grisel replied solemnly, ‘drowned sailors float midway, +suffering their sea change; purgatory. But what a splendid pennyworth. All pure +philosophy!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘“Philosophy!”’ said Lawford; ‘I am a perfect fool. Has your brother told you +about me?’ +</p> + +<p> +She glanced at him quickly. ‘We had a talk.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Then you do know—?’ He stopped dead, and turned to her. ‘You really realise +it, looking at me now?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I realise,’ she said gravely, ‘that you look even a little more pale and +haggard than when I saw you first the other night. We both, my brother and I, +you know, thought for certain you’d come yesterday. In fact, I went into the +Widderstone in the evening to look for you, knowing your nocturnal habits....’ +She glanced again at him with a kind of shy anxiety. +</p> + +<p> +‘Why—why is your brother so—why does he let me bore him so horribly?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Does he? He’s tremendously interested; but then, he’s pretty easily interested +when he’s interested at all. If he can possibly twist anything into the +slightest show of a mystery, he will. But, of course, you won’t, you can’t, +take all he says seriously. The tiniest pinch of salt, you know. He’s an +absolute fanatic at talking in the air. Besides, it doesn’t really matter +much.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘In the air?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I mean if once a theory gets into his head—the more far-fetched, so long as +it’s original, the better—it flowers out into a positive miracle of +incredibilities. And of course you can rout out evidence for anything under the +sun from his dingy old folios. Why did he lend you that <i>particular</i> +book?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Didn’t he tell you that, then?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘He said it was Sabathier.’ She seemed to think intensely for the merest +fraction of a moment, and turned. ‘Honestly, though, I think he immensely +exaggerated the likeness. As for...’ +</p> + +<p> +He touched her arm, and they stopped again, face to face. ‘Tell me what +difference exactly you see,’ he said. ‘I am quite myself again now, honestly; +please tell me just the very worst you think.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I think, to begin with,’ she began, with exaggerated candour, ‘his is rather a +detestable face.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘And mine?’ he said gravely. +</p> + +<p> +‘Why—very troubled; oh yes—but his was like some bird of prey. Yours—what mad +stuff to talk like this!—not the least symptom, that I can see, of—why, the +“prey,” you know.’ +</p> + +<p> +They had come to the wicket in the dark thorny hedge. ‘Would it be very +dreadful to walk on a little—just to finish?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Very,’ she said, turning as gravely at his side. +</p> + +<p> +‘What I wanted to say was—’ began Lawford, and forgetting altogether the thread +by which he hoped to lead up to what he really wanted to say, broke off lamely; +‘I should have thought you would have absolutely despised a coward.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘It would be rather absurd to despise what one so horribly well understands. +Besides, we weren’t cowards—we weren’t cowards a bit. My childhood was one +long, reiterated terror—nights and nights of it. But I never had the pluck to +tell any one. No one so much as dreamt of the company I had. Ah, and you didn’t +see either that my heart was absolutely in my mouth, that I was shrivelled up +with fear, even at sight of the fear on your face in the dark. There’s +absolutely nothing so catching. So, you see, I <i>do</i> know a little what +nerves are; and dream too sometimes, though I don’t choose charnelhouses if I +can get a comfortable bed. A coward! May I really say that to ask my help was +one of the bravest things in a man I ever heard of. Bullets—that kind of +courage—no real woman cares twopence for bullets. An old aunt of mine stared a +man right out of the house with the thing in her face. Anyhow, whether I may or +not, I do say it. So now we are quits.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Will you—’ began Lawford, and stopped. ‘What I wanted to say was,’ he jerked +on, ‘it is sheer horrible hypocrisy to be talking to you like this—though you +will never have the faintest idea of what it has meant and done for me. I +mean... And yet, and yet, I do feel when just for the least moment I forget +what I am, and that isn’t very often, when I forget what I have become and what +I must go back to—I feel that I haven’t any business to be talking with you at +all. “Quits!” And here I am, an outcast from decent society. Ah, you don’t +know—’ +</p> + +<p> +She bent her head and laughed under her breath. ‘You do really stumble on such +delicious compliments. And yet, do you know, I think my brother would be +immensely pleased to think you were an outcast from decent society if only he +could be thought one too. He has been trying half his life to wither decent +society with neglect and disdain—but it doesn’t take the least notice. The deaf +adder, you know. Besides, besides; what is all this meek talk? I detest meek +talk—gods or men. Surely in the first and last resort all we are is ourselves. +Something has happened; you are jangled, shaken. But to us, believe me, you are +simply one of fewer friends—and I think, after struggling up Widderstone Lane +hand in hand with you in the dark, I have a right to say “friends”—than I could +count on one hand. What are we all if we only realized it? We talk of dignity +and propriety, and we are like so many children playing with knucklebones in a +giant’s scullery. Come along, he will, some suppertime, for us, each in +turn—and how many even will so much as look up from their play to wave us +good-bye? that’s what I mean—the plot of <i>silence</i> we are all in. If only +I had my brother’s lucidity, how much better I would have said all this. It is +only, believe me, that I want ever so much to help you, if I may—even at risk, +too,’ she added, rather shakily, ‘of having that help—well—I know it’s little +good.’ +</p> + +<p> +The lane had narrowed. They had climbed the arch of a narrow stone bridge that +spanned the smooth dark Widder. A few late starlings were winging far above +them. Darkness was coming on apace. They stood for awhile looking down into the +black flowing water, with here and there the mild silver of a star dim leagues +below. ‘I am afraid,’ said Grisel, looking quietly up, ‘you have led me into +talking most pitiless nonsense. How many hours, I wonder, did I lie awake in +the dark last night, thinking of you? Honestly, I shall never, <i>never</i> +forget that walk. It haunted me, on and on.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Thinking of me? Do you really mean that? Then it was not all imagination; it +wasn’t just the drowning man clutching at a straw?’ +</p> + +<p> +The grey eyes questioned him. ‘You see,’ he explained in a whisper, as if +afraid of being overheard, ‘it—it came back again, and—I don’t mind a bit how +much you laugh at me! I had been asleep, and had had a most awful dream, one of +those dreams that seem to hint that some day <i>that</i> will be our real +world, that some day we may awake where dreaming then will be of this; and I +woke—came back—and there was a tremendous knocking going on downstairs. I knew +there was no one else in the house—’ +</p> + +<p> +‘No one else in the house? And you like this?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes,’ said Lawford, stolidly, ‘they were all out as it happened. And, of +course,’ he went on quickly, ‘there was nothing for me to do but simply to go +down and open the door. And yet, do you know, at first I simply couldn’t move. +I lit a candle, and then—then somehow I got to know that waiting for me was +just—but there,’ he broke off half-ashamed, ‘I mustn’t bother you with all this +morbid stuff. Will your brother be in now, do you think?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘My brother will be in, and, of course, expecting you. But as for “bother,” +believe me—well, did I quite deserve it?’ She stooped towards him. ‘You lit a +candle—and then?’ +</p> + +<p> +They turned and retraced their way slowly up the hill. +</p> + +<p> +‘It came again.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘It?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘That—that presence, that shadow. I don’t mean, of course, it’s a real shadow. +It comes, doesn’t it, from—from within? As if from out of some unheard-of +hiding place, where it has been lurking for ages and ages before one’s +childhood; at least, so it seems to me now. And yet although it does come from +within, there it is, too, in front of you, before your eyes, feeding even on +your fear, just watching, waiting for—What nonsense all this must seem to you!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes, yes; and then?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Then, and you must remember the poor old boy had been knocking all this +time—my old friend—Mr Bethany, I mean—knocking and calling through the +letter-box, thinking I was <i lang="la">in extremis</i>, or something; then—how +shall I describe it?—well <i>you</i> came, your eyes, your face, as clear as +when, you know, the night before last, we went up the hill together. And +then...’ +</p> + +<p> +‘And then?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘And then, we—you and I, you know—simply drove him downstairs, and I could hear +myself grunting as if it was really a physical effort; we drove him, step by +step, downstairs. And—’ He laughed outright, and boyishly continued his +adventure. ‘What do you think I did then, without the ghost of a smile, too, at +the idiocy of the thing? I locked the poor beggar in the drawing-room. I saw +him there, as plainly as I ever saw anything in my life, and the furniture +glimmering, though it was pitch dark: I can’t describe it. It all seemed so +desperately real, absolutely vital then. It all seems so meaningless and +impossible now. And yet, although I am utterly played out and done for, and +however absurd it may <i>sound</i>, I wouldn’t have lost it; I wouldn’t go back +for any bribe there is. I feel just as if a great bundle had been rolled off my +back. Of course, the queerest, the most detestable part of the whole business +is that <i>it</i>—the thing on the stairs—was this’—he lifted a grave and +haggard face towards her again—‘or rather <i>that</i>,’ he pointed with his +stick towards the starry churchyard. ‘Sabathier,’ he said. +</p> + +<p> +Again they had paused together before the white gate, and this time Lawford +pushed it open, and followed his companion up the narrow path. +</p> + +<p> +She stayed a moment, her hand on the bell. ‘Was it my brother who actually put +that horrible idea into your mind?—about Sabathier?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Oh no, not really put it into my head,’ said Lawford hollowly. ‘He only found +it there; lit it up.’ +</p> + +<p> +She laid her hand lightly on his arm. ‘Whether he did or not,’ she said with an +earnestness that was almost an entreaty, ‘of course, you <i>must</i> agree that +we every one of us have some such experience—that kind of visitor, once at +least, in a lifetime.’ ‘Ah, but,’ began Lawford, turning forlornly away, ‘you +didn’t see, you can’t have realized—the change.’ +</p> + +<p> +She pulled the bell almost as if in some inward triumph. ‘But don’t you think,’ +she suggested, ‘that that, like the other, might be, as it were, partly +imagination too? If now you thought <i>back.</i>...’ +</p> + +<p> +But a little old woman had opened the door, and the sentence, for the moment, +was left unfinished. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap17"></a> +CHAPTER SEVENTEEN</h2> + +<p> +There was no one in the room, and no light, when they entered. For a moment +Grisel stood by the open window, looking out. Then she turned impulsively. ‘My +brother, of course, will ask you too,’ she said; ‘we had made up our minds to +do so if you came again; but I want you to promise me now that you won’t dream +of going back to-night. That surely would be tempting—well, not Providence. I +couldn’t rest if I thought you might be alone; like that again.’ Her voice died +away into the calling of the waters. A light moved across the dingy old rows of +books and as his sister turned to go out Herbert appeared in the doorway, +carrying a green-shaded lamp, with an old leather quarto under his arm. +</p> + +<p> +‘Ah, here you are,’ he said. ‘I guessed you had probably met.’ He drew up, +burdened, before his visitor. But his clear black glance, instead of wandering +off at his first greeting, had intensified. And it was almost with an air of +absorption that he turned away. He dumped his book on to a chair and it turned +over with scattered leaves on to the floor. He put the lamp down and stooped +after it, so that his next words came up muffled, and as if the remark had been +forced out of him. ‘You don’t feel worse, I hope?’ He got up and faced his +visitor for the answer. And for the moment Lawford stood considering his +symptoms. +</p> + +<p> +‘No,’ he said almost gaily; ‘I feel enormously better.’ But Herbert’s long, +oval, questioning eyes beneath the sleek black hair were still fixed on his +face. ‘I am afraid, my dear fellow,’ he said, with something more than his +usual curiously indifferent courtesy, ‘the struggle has frightfully pulled you +to pieces.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘The question is,’ answered Lawford, with a kind of tired yet whimsical +melancholy in his voice, ‘though I am not sure that the answer very much +matters—what’s going to put me together again? It’s the old story of Humpty +Dumpty, Herbert. Besides, one thing you said has stuck out in a quite curious +way in my memory. I wonder if you will remember?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘What was that?’ said Herbert with unfeigned curiosity. +</p> + +<p> +‘Why, you said even though Sabathier had failed, though I was still my own old +stodgy self, that you thought the face—the face, you know, might work in. +Somehow, sometimes I think it has. It does really rather haunt me. In that +case—well, what then?’ Lawford had himself listened to this involved +explanation much as one watches the accomplishment of a difficult trick, +marvelling more at its completion at all than at the difficulty involved in the +doing of it. +</p> + +<p> +‘“Work in,”’ repeated Herbert, like a rather blasé child confronted with a new +mechanical toy; ‘did I really say that? well, honestly, it wasn’t bad; it’s +what one would expect on that hypothesis. You see, we are only different, as it +were, in our differences. Once the foot’s over the threshold, it’s nine points +of the law! But I don’t remember saying it.’ He shamefacedly and naively +confessed it: ‘I say such an awful lot of things. And I’m always changing my +mind. It’s a standing joke against me with my sister. She says the recording +angel will have two sides to my account: Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays; and +Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays—diametrically opposite convictions, and both +kinds wrong. On Sundays I am all things to all men. As for Sabathier, by the +way, I do want particularly to have another go at him. I’ve been thinking him +over, and I’m afraid in some ways he won’t quite wash. And that reminds me, did +you read the poor chap?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I just grubbed through a page or two; but most of my French was left at +school. What I did do, though, was to show the book to an old friend of ours—my +wife’s and mine—just to skim—a Mr Bethany. He’s an old clergyman—our vicar, in +fact.’ +</p> + +<p> +Herbert had sat down, and with eyes slightly narrowed was listening with +peculiar attention. He smiled a little magnanimously. ‘His verdict, I should +think, must have been a perfect joy.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘He said,’ said Lawford, in his rather low, monotonous voice, ‘he said it was +precious poor stuff, that it reminded him of patchouli; and that Sabathier—the +print I mean—looked like a foxy old roué. They were, I think, his exact words. +We were alone together, last night.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘You don’t mean that he simply didn’t see the faintest resemblance?’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford nodded. ‘But then,’ he added simply, ‘whenever he comes to see me now +he leaves his spectacles at home.’ +</p> + +<p> +And at that, as if at some preconcerted signal, they both went off into a +simple shout of laughter, unanimous and sustained. +</p> + +<p> +But this first wild bout of laughter over, the first real bursting of the dam, +perhaps, for years, Lawford found himself at a lower ebb than ever. +</p> + +<p> +‘You see,’ he said presently, and while still his companion’s face was smiling +around the remembrance of his laughter like ripples after the splash of a +stone, ‘Bethany has been absolutely my sheet-anchor right through. And I was—it +was—you can’t possibly realise what a ghastly change it really was. I don’t +think any one ever will.’ +</p> + +<p> +Herbert opened his hand and looked reflectively into its palm before allowing +himself to reply. ‘I wonder, you know; I have been wondering a good deal; +simply taking the other point of view for a moment; <i>was</i> it? I don’t mean +“ghastly” exactly (like, say, smallpox, G.P.I., elephantiasis), but was it +quite so complete, so radical, as in the first sheer gust of astonishment you +fancied?’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford thought on a little further. ‘You know how one sees oneself in a +passion—why, how a child looks—the whole face darkened and drawn and possessed? +That was the change. That’s how it seems to come back to me. And something, +somebody, dodging behind the eyes. Yes; more that than even any excessive +change of feature, except, of course, that I also seemed—Shall I ever forget +that first cold, stifling stare into the looking-glass! I certainly was much +darker, even my hair. But I’ve told you all this before,’ he added wearily, +‘and the scores and scores of times I’ve thought it. I used to sit up there in +the big spare bedroom my wife put me up in, simply gloating. My flesh seemed +nothing more than an hallucination: there I was, haunting my body, an old +grinning tenement, and all that I thought I wanted, and couldn’t do without, +all I valued and prided myself on—stacked up in the drizzling street below. +Why, Herbert, our bodies <i>are</i> only glass or cloud. They melt, don’t they, +like wax in the sun once we’re out. But those first few days don’t make very +pleasant thinking. Friday night was the first, when I sat there like a +twitching waxwork, soberly debating between Bedlam here and Bedlam hereafter. I +even sometimes wonder whether its very repetition has not dulled the memory or +distorted it. My wife,’ he added ingenuously, ‘seems to think there are signs +of a slight improvement—a going back, I mean. But I’m not sure whether she +meant it.’ +</p> + +<p> +Herbert surveyed his visitor critically. ‘You say “dark,” he said; ‘but surely, +Lawford, your hair now is nearly grey; well-flecked at least.’ +</p> + +<p> +Although the remark carried nothing comparatively of a shock with it, yet it +seemed to Lawford as if an electric current had passed over his scalp, coldly +stirring every hair upon his head. But somehow or other it was easier to sit +quietly on, to express no surprise, to let them do or say what they liked. +‘Well’ he retorted with an odd, crooked smile, ‘you must remember I am a good +deal older than I was last Saturday. I grew grey in the grave, Herbert.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘But it’s like this, you know,’ said Herbert, rising excitedly, and at the next +moment, on reflection, composedly reseating himself. ‘How many of your people +actually <i>saw</i> it? How many owned to its being as bad, as complete, as you +made out? I don’t want for a moment to cut right across what you said last +night—our talk—but there are two million sides to every question, and as often +as not the less conspicuous have sounder—well—roots. That’s all.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I think really, do you know, I would rather not go over the detestable thing +again. Not many; my wife, though, and a man I know called Danton, who—who’s +prejudiced. After all, I have myself to think about too. And right through, +right through—there wasn’t the least doubt of that—they all in their hearts +knew it was me. They knew I was behind. I could feel that absolutely always; +it’s not just eyes and ears we use, there’s us ourselves to consider, though +God alone knows what that means. But the password was there, as you might say; +and they all knew I knew it, all—except’—he looked up as if in +bewilderment—‘except just one, a poor old lady, a very old friend of my +mother’s, whom I—I Sabathiered!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Whom—you—Sabathiered!’ repeated Herbert carefully, with infinite relish, +looking sidelong at his visitor. ‘And it is just precisely that....’ +</p> + +<p> +But at that moment his sister appeared in the doorway to say that supper was +ready. And it was not until Herbert was actually engaged in carving a cold +chicken that he followed up his advantage. ‘Mr. Lawford, Grisel,’ he said, ‘has +just enriched our jaded language with a new verb—to Sabathier. And if I may +venture to define it in the presence of the distinguished neologist himself, it +means, “To deal with histrionically”; or, rather, that’s what it will mean a +couple of hundred years hence. For the moment it means, “To act under the +influence of subliminalization; To perplex, or bemuse, or estrange with +<i>otherness</i>.” Do tell us, Lawford, more about the little old lady.’ He +passed with her plate a little meaningful glance at his sister, and repeated, +‘Do!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘But I’ve been plaguing your sister enough already. You’ll wish...’ Lawford +began, and turned his tired-out eyes towards those others awaiting them so +frankly they seemed in their perfect friendliness a rest from all his troubles. +‘You see,’ he went on, ‘what I kept on thinking and thinking of was to get a +quite unbiased and unprejudiced view. She had known me for years, though we had +not actually met more than once or twice since my mother’s death. And there she +was sitting with me at the other end of just such another little seat as’—he +turned—to Herbert ‘as ours, at Widderstone. It was on Bewley Common: I can see +it all now; it was sunset. And I simply turned and asked her in a kind of a +whining affected manner if she remembered me; and when after a long time she +came round to owning that to all intents and purposes she did not—I professed +to have made a mistake in recognising <i>her</i>. I think,’ he added, glancing +up from one to the other of his two strange friends, ‘I think it was the +meanest trick I can remember.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘H’m,’ said Herbert solemnly: ‘I wish I had as sensitive a conscience. But as +your old friend didn’t recognise you, who’s the worse? As for her not doing so, +just think of the difference a few years makes to a man, and <i>any</i> severe +shock. Life wears so infernally badly. Who, for that matter, does not change, +even in character and yet who professes to see it? Mind, I don’t say in +essence! But then how many of the human ghosts one meets does one know in +essence? One doesn’t want to. It would be positively cataclysmic. And that’s +what brings me around to feel, Lawford, if I may venture to say so, that you +may have brooded a little too keenly on—on your own case. Tell any one you feel +ill; he will commiserate with you to positive nausea. Tell any priest your soul +is in danger; will he wait for proof? It’s misereres and penances world without +end. Tell any woman you love her; will she, can she, should she, gainsay you? +There you are. The cat’s out of the bag, you see. My sister and I sat up half +the night talking the thing over. I said I’d take the plunge. I said I’d risk +appearing the crassest, contradictoriest wretch that ever drew breath. I don’t +deny that what I hinted at the other night must seem in part directly contrary +to what I’m going to say now.’ +</p> + +<p> +He wheeled his black eyes as if for inspiration, and helped himself to salad. +‘It’s this,’ he said. ‘Isn’t it possible, isn’t it even probable that being +ill, and overstrung, moping a little over things more or less out of the common +ruck, and sitting there in a kind of trance—isn’t it possible that you may have +very largely <i>imagined</i> the change? Hypnotised yourself into believing it +much worse—more profound, radical, acute—and simply absolutely hypnotizing +others into thinking so, too. Christendom is just beginning to rediscover that +there is such a thing as faith, that it is just possible that, say, megrims or +melancholia may be removed at least as easily as mountains. The converse, of +course, is obvious on the face of it. A man fails because he thinks himself a +failure. It’s the men that run away that lose the battle. Suppose then, +Lawford’—he leaned forward, keen and suave—‘suppose you have been and +“Sabathiered” yourself!’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford had grown accustomed during the last few days to finding himself gazing +out like a child into reality, as if from the windows of a dream. He had in a +sense followed this long, loosely stitched, preliminary argument; he had at +least in part realised that he sat there between two clear friendly minds +acting in the friendliest and most obvious collusion. But he was incapable of +fixing his attention very closely on any single fragment of Herbert’s apology, +or of rousing himself into being much more than a dispassionate and not very +interested spectator of the little melodrama that Fate, it appeared, had at the +last moment decided rather capriciously to twist into a farce. He turned with a +smile to the face so keenly fixed and enthusiastic with the question it had so +laboriously led up to: ‘But surely, I don’t quite see...’ +</p> + +<p> +Herbert lifted his glass as if to his visitor’s acumen and set it down again +without tasting it. ‘Why, my dear fellow,’ he said triumphantly, ‘even a dream +must have a peg. Yours was this unforgettable old suicide. Candidly now, how +much of Sabathier was actually yours? In spite of all that that fantastical +fellow, Herbert, said last night, dead men <i>don’t</i> tell tales. The last +place in the world to look for a ghost is where his traitorous bones lie +crumbling. Good heavens, think what irrefutable masses of evidence there would +be at our finger-tips if every tombstone hid its ghost! No; the fellow just +arrested you with his creepy epitaph: an epitaph, mind you, that is in a +literary sense distinctly fertilizing. It catches one’s fancy in its own crude +way, as pages and pages of infinitely more complicated stuff take possession +of, germinate, and sprout in one’s imagination in another way. We are all +psychical parasites. Why, given his epitaph, given the surroundings, I wager +any sensitive consciousness could have guessed at his face; and guessing, as it +were, would have feigned it. What do you think, Grisel?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I think, dear, you are talking absolute nonsense; what do they call +it—“darkening counsel”? It’s “the hair of the dog,” Mr Lawford.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Well, then, you see,’ said Herbert over a hasty mouthful, and turning again to +his victim—‘then you see, when you were just in the pink of condition to credit +any idle tale you heard, then I came in. What, with the least impetus, can one +<i>not</i> see by moonlight? The howl of a dog turns the midnight into a +Brocken; the branch of a tree stoops out at you like a Beelzebub crusted with +gadflies. I’d, mind you, sipped of the deadly old Huguenot too. I’d listened to +your innocent prattle about the child kicking his toes out on death’s cupboard +door; what more likely thing in the world, then, than that with that moon, in +that packed air, I should have swallowed the bait whole, and seen Sabathier in +every crevice of your skin? I don’t say there wasn’t any resemblance; it was +for the moment extraordinary; it was even when you were here the other night +distinctly arresting. But now (poor old Grisel, I’m nearly done) all I want to +say is this: that if we had the “foxy old roué” here now, and Grisel played +Paris between the three of us, she’d hand over the apple not to you but to me.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I don’t quite see where poor Paris comes in,’ suggested Grisel meekly. +</p> + +<p> +‘No, nor do I,’ said Herbert. ‘All that I mean, sagacious child, is, that Mr +Lawford no more resembles the poor wretch now than I resemble the Apollo +Belvedere. If you had only heard my sister scolding me, railing at me for +putting such ideas into your jangled head! They don’t affect <i>me</i> one +iota. I have, I suppose, what is usually called imagination; which merely means +that I can sup with the devil, spoon for spoon, and could sleep in Bluebeard’s +linen-closet without turning a hair. You, if I am not very much mistaken, are +not much troubled with that very unprofitable quality, and so, I suppose, when +a crooked and bizarre fancy does edge into your mind it roots there.’ +</p> + +<p> +And that said, not without some little confusion, and covert glance of inquiry +at his sister, Herbert made all the haste he could to catch up the course that +his companions had already finished. +</p> + +<p> +If only, Lawford thought, this insufferable weariness would lift awhile he +could enjoy the quiet, absurd, heedless talk, and this very friendly +topsy-turvy effort to ease his mind and soothe his nerves. He might even take +an interest again in his ‘case.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘You see,’ he said, turning to Grisel, ‘I don’t think it really very much +matters how it all came about. I never could believe it would last. It may +perhaps—some of it at least may be fancy. But then, what isn’t? What <i>is</i> +trustworthy? And now your brother tells me my hair’s turning grey. I suppose I +have been living too slowly, too sluggishly, and they thought it was high time +to stir me up.’ +</p> + +<p> +He saw with extraordinary vividness the low panelled room; the still listening +face; the white muslin shoulders and dark hair; and the eyes that seemed to +recall some far-off desolate longing for home and childhood. It was all a +dream. That was the end of the matter. Even now, perhaps, his tired old stupid +body was lying hunched up, drenched with dew upon the little old seat under the +mist-wreathed branches. Soon it would bestir itself and wake up and go off +home—home to Sheila, to the old deadly round that once had seemed so natural +and inevitable, to the old dull Lawford—eyes and brain and heart. +</p> + +<p> +They returned up the dark shallow staircase to Herbert’s book-room, and he +talked on to very quiet and passive listeners in his own fantastic endless +fashion. And ever and again Lawford would find himself intercepting fleeting +and anxious glances at his face, glances almost of remorse and pity; and +thought he detected beneath this irresponsible contradictory babble an +unceasing effort to clear the sky, to lure away too pressing memories, to put +his doubts and fears completely to rest. +</p> + +<p> +Herbert even went so far as to plead guilty, when Grisel gave him the cue, of +having a little heightened and overcoloured his story of the restless +phantasmal old creature that haunted their queer wooden hauntable old house. +And when they rose, laughing and yawning to take up their candles, it was, +after all, after a rather animated discussion, with many a hair-raising ghost +story brought in for proof between brother and sister, as to exactly how many +times that snuff-coloured spectre had made his appearance; and, with less +unanimity still, as to the precise manner in which he was in the habit of +making his precipitant exit. +</p> + +<p> +‘You do at any rate acknowledge, Grisel, that the old creature does appear, and +that you saw him yourself step out into space when you were sitting down there +under the willow shelling peas. I’ve seen him twice for certain, once rather +hazily; Sallie saw him so plainly she asked his business: that’s five. I +resign.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Acknowledge!’ said Grisel; ‘of course I do. I’d acknowledge anything in the +world to save argument. Why, I don’t know what I should do without him. If +only, now Mr Lawford would give him a fair chance to show himself reading +quietly here about ten minutes to one, or shelling peas even, if he prefers it. +If only he’d stay long enough for <i>that</i>. Wouldn’t it be the very thing +for them both!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Of course,’ said Herbert cordially, ‘the very thing.’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford looked up at neither of them. He shook his head. +</p> + +<p> +But he needed little persuasion to stay at least one night. The prospect of +that long solitary walk, of that tired stupid stooping figure dragging itself +along the interminable country roads seemed a sheer impossibility. ‘It is +not—it isn’t, I swear it—the other that keeps me back,’ he had solemnly assured +the friend that half smiled her relief at his acceptance, ‘but—if you only knew +how empty it’s all got now; all reason gone even to go on at all.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘But doesn’t it follow? Of course it’s empty. And now life is going to begin +again. I assure you it is, I do indeed. Only, only have courage—just the will +to win on.’ +</p> + +<p> +He said good-night; shut-to the latched door of his long low room, ceilinged +with rafters close under the steep roof, its brown walls hung with quiet, dark, +pondering and beautiful faces looking gravely across at him. And with his +candle in his hand he sat down on the bedside. All speculation was gone. The +noisy clock of his brain had run down again. He turned towards the old oval +looking-glass on the dressing-table without the faintest stirring of interest, +suspense, or anxiety. What did it matter what a man looked like—a now familiar +but enfeebled and deprecating voice seemed to say. He knew that a change had +come. Even Sheila had noticed it. And since then what had he not gone through? +What now was here seemed of little moment, so far at least as this world was +concerned. +</p> + +<p> +At last with an effort he rose, crossed the uneven floor, and looked in +unmovedly on what was his own poor face come back to him: changed indeed almost +beyond belief from the sleek self-satisfied genial yet languid Arthur Lawford +of the past years, and still haunted with some faint trace of the set and icy +sharpness, and challenge, and affront of the dark Adventurer, but that—how +immeasurably dimmed and blunted and faded. He had expected to find it so. Would +it (the thought vanished across his mind) would it have been as unmistakably +there had he come hot-foot, fearing, expecting to find the other? But—was he +disappointed! +</p> + +<p> +He hardly knew how long he stood there, leaning on his hands, surveying almost +listlessly in the candle-light that lined, bedraggled, grey, hopeless +countenance, those dark-socketed, smouldering eyes, whose pupils even now were +so dilated that a casual glance would have failed to detect the least hint of +any iris. ‘It must have been something pretty bad you were, you know, or +something pretty bad you did,’ they seemed to be trying to say to him, ‘to drag +us down to this.’ +</p> + +<p> +He knelt down by force of habit to say his prayers; but no words came. Well, +between earthly friends a betrayal such as this would have caused a livelong +estrangement and hostility. The God the old Lawford used to pray to would +forgive him, he thought wearily, if just for the present he was a little too +sore at heart to play the hypocrite. But if, while kneeling, he said nothing, +he saw a good many things in such tranquillity and clearness as the mere eyes +of the body can share but rarely with their sisters of the imagination. And now +it was Alice who looked mournfully out of the dark at him; and now the little +old charwoman, Mrs Gull, with her bag hooked over her arm, climbed painfully up +the area steps; and now it was the lean vexed face of a friend, nursing some +restless and anxious grievance against him—Mr Bethany; and then and ever again +it was the face of one who seemed pure dream and fantasy and yet... He listened +intently and fancied even now he could hear the voices of brother and sister +talking quietly and circumspectly together in the room beneath. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap18"></a> +CHAPTER EIGHTEEN</h2> + +<p> +A quiet knocking aroused him in the long, tranquil bedroom; and Herbert’s head +was poked into the room. ‘There’s a bath behind that door over there,’ he +whispered, ‘or if you like I’m off for a bathe in the Widder. It’s a luscious +day. Shall I wait? All right,’ and the head was withdrawn. ‘Don’t put much on,’ +came the voice at the panel; ‘we’ll be home again in twenty minutes.’ +</p> + +<p> +The green and brightness of the morning must have been prepared for overnight +by spiders and the dew. Everywhere the gleaming nets were hung, and everywhere +there rose a tiny splendour from the waterdrops, so clear and pure and +changeable it seemed with their fire and colour they shook a tiny crystal music +in the air. Herbert led the way along a clayey downward path beneath hazels +tossing softly together their twigs of nuts, until they came out into a rounded +hollow that, mounded with thyme, sloped gently down to the green banks of the +Widder. The water poured like clearest glass beneath a rain of misty sunbeams. +</p> + +<p> +‘My sister always says that this is the very dell Boccaccio had in his mind’s +eye when he wrote the “Decameron.” There really is something almost classic in +those pines. And I’d sometimes swear with my eyes just out of the water I’ve +seen Dryads half in hiding peeping between those beeches. Good Lord, Lawford, +what a world we wretched moderns have made, and missed!’ +</p> + +<p> +The water was violently cold. It seemed to Lawford, as it swept up over his +body, and as he plunged his night-distorted eyes beneath its blazing surface, +that it was charged with some strange, powerful enchantment to wash away in its +icy clearness even the memory of the dull and tarnished days behind him. If one +could but tie up anyhow that stained bundle of inconsequent memories called +life, and fling it into a cupboard remoter even than Bluebeard’s, and lock the +door, and drop the quickly-rusting key into these living waters! +</p> + +<p> +He dressed himself with window thrown open to the blackbirds and thrushes, and +the occasional shrill solitary whistling of a robin. But, like the sour-sweet +fragrance of the brier, its wandering desolate burst of music had power to wake +memory, and carried him instantly back to that first aimless descent into the +evening gloom of Widderstone from which it was in vain to hope ever to climb +again. Surely never a more ghoulish face looked out on its man before than that +which confronted him as with borrowed razor he stood shaving those sunken +chaps, that angular chin. +</p> + +<p> +And even now, beneath the lantern of broad daylight, just as within that other +face had lurked the undeniable ghost and presence of himself, so beneath the +sunken features seemed to float, tenuous as smoke, scarcely less elusive than a +dream, between eye and object, the sinister darkness of the face that in those +two bouts with fear he had by some strange miracle managed to repel. +</p> + +<p> +‘Work in,’ the chance phrase came back. It had worked in in sober earnest; and +so far as the living of the next few weeks went, surely it might prove an ally +without which he simply could not conceive himself as struggling on at all. +</p> + +<p> +But as dexterous minds as even restless Sabathier’s had him just now in safe +and kindly keeping. All the quiet October morning Herbert kept him talking and +stooping over his extraordinary collection of books. +</p> + +<p> +‘The point is,’ he explained to Lawford, standing amid a positive archipelago +of precious ‘finds,’ with his foot hoisted onto a chair and a patched-up, +sea-stained folio on his knee, ‘I honestly detest the mere give and take of +what we are fools enough to call life. I don’t deny Life’s there,’ he swept his +hand towards the open window—‘in that frantic Tophet we call London; but +there’s no focus, no point of vantage. Even a scribbler only gets it piecemeal +and through a dulled medium. We learn to read before we know how to see; we +swallow our tastes, convictions, and emotions whole; so that nine-tenths of the +world’s nectar is merely honeydew.’ He smiled pleasantly into the fixed vacancy +of his visitor’s face. ‘That’s why I’ve just gone on,’ he continued amiably, +‘collecting this particular kind of stuff—what you might call riff-raff. +There’s not a book here, Lawford, that hasn’t at least a glimmer of the real +thing in it—just Life, seen through a living eye, and felt. As for literature, +and style, and all that gallimaufry, don’t fear for them if your author has the +ghost of a hint of genius in his making.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘But surely,’ said Lawford, trying for the twentieth time to pretend to himself +that these endless books carried the faintest savour of the delight to him +which they must, he rather forlornly supposed, shower upon Herbert, ‘surely +genius is a very rare thing!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Rare! the world simply swarms with it. But before you can bottle it up in a +book it’s got to be articulate. Just for a single instant imagine yourself +Falstaff, and if there weren’t hundreds of Falstaffs in every generation, to be +examples of his ungodly life, he’d be as dead as a doornail to-morrow—imagine +yourself Falstaff, and being so, sitting down to write “Henry IV,” or “The +Merry Wives.” It’s simply preposterous. You wouldn’t be such a fool as to waste +the time. A mere Elizabethan scribbler comes along with a gift of expression +and an observant eye, lifts the bloated old tippler clean out of life, and +swims down the ages as the greatest genius the world has ever seen. Whereas, +surely, though you mustn’t let me bore you with all this piffle, it’s Falstaff +is the genius, and W. S. merely a talented reporter. +</p> + +<p> +‘Lear, Macbeth, Mercutio—they live on their own, as it were. The newspapers are +full of them, if we were only the Shakespeares to see it. Have you ever been in +a Police Court? Have you ever <i>watched</i> tradesmen behind their counters? +My soul, the secrets walking in the streets! You jostle them at every corner. +There’s a Polonius in every first-class railway carriage, and as many Juliets +as there are boarding-schools. What the devil are <i>you</i>, my dear chap, but +genius itself, with all the world brand new upon your shoulders? And who’d have +thought it of you ten days ago? +</p> + +<p> +‘It’s simply and solely because we’re all, poor wretches, dumb—dumb as butts of +Malmsez; dumb as drummerless drums. Here am I, ass that I am, trickling out +this—this whey that no more expresses me than Tupper does Sappho. But that’s +what I want to mean. How inexhaustibly rich everything is, if you only stick to +life. Here it is packed away behind these rotting covers, just the real thing, +no respectable stodge; no mere parasitic stuff; not more than a dozen poets; +scores of outcasts and vagabonds—and the real thing in vagabonds is pretty rare +in print, I can tell you. We’re all, every one of us, sodden with facts, +drugged with the second-hand, and barnacled with respectability until—until the +touch comes. Goodness knows where from; but there’s no mistaking it; oh no!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘But what,’ said Lawford uneasily, ‘what on earth do you mean by the touch?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I mean when you cease to be a puppet only and sit up in the gallery too. When +you squeeze through to the other side. When you suffer a kind of conversion of +the mind; become aware of your senses. When you get a living inkling. When you +become articulate to yourself. When you <i>see</i>.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I am awfully stupid,’ Lawford murmured, ‘but even now I don’t really follow +you a bit. But when, as you say, you do become articulate to yourself, what +happens then?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Why, then,’ said Herbert with a shrug almost of despair, ‘then begins the +weary tramp back. One by one drop off the truisms, and the Grundyisms, and the +pedantries, and all the stillborn claptrap of the marketplace sloughs off. Then +one can seriously begin to think about saving one’s soul.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Saving one’s soul,’ groaned Lawford; ‘why, I am not even sure of my own body +yet.’ He walked slowly over to the window and with every thought in his head as +quiet as doves on a sunny wall, stared out into the garden of green things +growing, leaves fading and falling water. ‘I tell you what,’ he said, turning +irresolutely, ‘I wonder if you could possibly find time to write me out a +translation of Sabathier. My French is much too hazy to let me really get at +the chap. He’s gone now; but I really should like to know what kind of stuff +exactly he has left behind.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Oh, Sabathier!’ said Herbert, laughing. ‘What do you think of that, Grisel?’ +he asked, turning to his sister, who at that moment had looked in at the door. +‘Here’s Mr Lawford asking me to make a translation of Sabathier. Lunch, +Lawford.’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford sighed. And not until he had slowly descended half the narrow uneven +stairs that led down to the dining-room did he fully realise the guile of a +sister that could induce a hopeless bookworm to waste a whole morning over the +stupidest of companions, simply to keep his tired-out mind from rankling, and +give his Sabathier a chance to go to roost. +</p> + +<p> +‘I think, do you know,’ he managed to blurt out at last ‘I think I ought to be +getting home again. The house is empty—and—’ +</p> + +<p> +‘You shall go this evening,’ said Herbert, ‘if you really must insist on it. +But honestly, Lawford, we both think that after what the last few days must +have been, it is merely common sense to take a rest. How can you possibly rest +with a dozen empty rooms echoing every thought you think? There’s nothing more +to worry about; you agree to that. Send your people a note saying that you are +here, safe and sound. Give them a chance of lighting a fire, and driving in the +fatted calf. Stay on with us just the week out.’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford turned from one to the other of the two friendly faces. But what was +dimly in his mind refused to express itself. ‘I think, you know, I—’ he began +falteringly. +</p> + +<p> +‘But it’s just this thinking that’s the deuce—this preposterous habit of having +continually to make up one’s mind. Off with his head, Grisel! My sister’s going +to take you for a picnic; we go every other fine afternoon; and you can argue +it out with her.’ +</p> + +<p> +Once alone again with Grisel, however, Lawford found talking unnecessary. +Silences seemed to fall between them as quietly and restfully as evening flows +into night. They walked on slowly through the fading woods, and when they had +reached the top of the hill that sloped down to the dark and foamless Widder +they sat down in the honey-scented sunshine on a knoll of heather and bracken, +and Grisel lighted the little spirit-kettle she had brought with her, and +busied herself very methodically over making tea. +</p> + +<p> +That done, she clasped her hands round her knees, and sat now gossiping, now +silent, in the pale autumnal beauty. There was a bird wistfully twittering in +the branches overhead, and ever and again a withered leaf would slip circling +down from the motionless beech boughs arched in their stillness above their +heads beneath the thin blue sky. +</p> + +<p> +‘Men, you know,’ she began again suddenly, starting out of reverie, ‘really are +absurdly blind; and just a little bit absurdly kindly stupid. How many times +have I been at the point of laughing out at my brother’s delicious naive +subtleties. But you do, you will, understand, Mr Lawford, that he was, that we +are both “doing our best”—to make amends?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I understand—I do indeed—a tenth part of all your kindness.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes, but that’s just it—that horrible word “kindness”! If ever there were two +utterly self-absorbed people, without a trace, with an absolute horror of +kindness, it is just my brother and I. It’s most of it false and most of it +useless. We all surely must take what comes in this topsy-turvy world. I +believe in saying out:—that the more one thinks about life the worse it +becomes. There are only two kinds of happiness in this world—a wooden post’s +and Prometheus’s. And who ever heard of any one having the impudence to be kind +to Prometheus? As for a miserable “medium” like me, not quite a post and +leagues and leagues from even envying a Prometheus, she’s better for the powder +without the jam. But that’s all nothing. What I can’t help thinking—and it’s +not a bit giving my brother away, because we both think it—that it was partly +our thoughtlessness that added at least something to—to the rest. It was +perfectly absurd. He saw you were ill; he saw—he must have seen even in that +first Sunday talk—that your nerves were all askew. And who doesn’t know what +“nerves” means nowadays? And yet he deliberately chattered. He loves it—just at +large, you know, like me. I told him before I came out that I intended, if I +could, to say all this. And now it’s said you’ll please forgive me for going +back to it.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Please don’t talk about forgiveness. But when you say he chattered, you mean +about Sabathier, of course. And that, you know, I don’t care a fig for now. We +can settle all that between ourselves—him and me, I mean. And now tell me +candidly again—Is there any “prey” in my face now?’ +</p> + +<p> +She looked up fleetingly into his eyes, leant back her head and laughed. +‘“Prey,” there never was a glimpse.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘And “change”?’ Their eyes met again in an infinitely brief, infinitely +bewildering argument. +</p> + +<p> +‘Really, really, scarcely perceptible,’ she assured him, ‘except, of course, +how horribly, horribly ill you look. And that only seems to prove to me you +must be hiding something else. No illusion on earth could—could have done that +to your face.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘You think, I know,’ he persisted, ‘that I must be persuaded and cosseted and +humoured. Yes, you do; it’s my poor old sanity that’s really in both your +minds. Perhaps I am—not absolutely sound. Anyhow. I’ve been watching it in your +looks at each other all the time. And I can never, never say, never tell you +what you have done for me. But you see, after all, we did win through; I keep +on telling myself that. So that now it’s purely from the most selfish and +practical motives that I want you to be perfectly frank with me. I have to go +back, you know; and some of them, one or two of my friends I mean, are not all +on my side. Think of me as I was when you came into the room, three centuries +ago, and you turned and looked, frowning at me in the candle-light; remember +that and look at me now. What is the difference? Does it shock you? Does it +make the whole world seem a trick, a sham? Does it simply sour your life to +think such a thing possible? Oh, the hours I’ve spent gloating on Widderstone’s +miserable mask of skin and bone, as I was saying to your brother only last +night, and never knew until they shuffled me that the old self too was nothing +better than a stifling suffocating mask.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘But don’t you see,’ she argued softly, turning her face away a little, ‘you +were a stranger then (though I certainly didn’t <i>mean</i> to frown). And then +a little while after we were, well, just human beings, shoulder to shoulder, +and if friendship does not mean that, I don’t know what it does mean. And now, +you are—well, just you: the you, you know, of three centuries ago! And if you +mean to ask me whether at any precise moment I have been conscious that this +you I am now speaking to was not the you of last night, or of that dark climb +up the hill, why, it is simply frantic to think it could ever be necessary to +say over and over again, No. But if you mean, Have you changed else? All I +could answer is, Don’t we all change as we grow to know one another? What were +just features, what just dingily represented one, as it were, is forgotten, or +rather gets remembered. Of course, the first glimpse is the landscape under +lightning as it were. But afterwards isn’t it surely like the alphabet to a +child; what was first a queer angular scrawl becomes A, and is always ever +after A, undistinguished, half-forgotten, yet standing at last for goodness +knows what real wonderful things—or for just the dry bones of soulless words? +Is that it?’ She stole a sidelong glance into his brooding face, leaning her +head on her hand. +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes, yes,’ came the rather dissatisfied reply. ‘I do agree; perfectly. But +then, you see—I told you I was going to talk of nothing but myself—what did at +first happen to me was something much worse, and, I suppose, something quite +different from that.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘And yet, didn’t you tell us, that of all your friends not one really denied in +their hearts your—what they would call, I suppose—your <i>identity</i>; except +that poor little offended old lady. And even she, if my intuition is worth a +penny piece, even she when you go soon and talk to her will own that she did +know you, and that it was not because you were a stranger that she was +offended, but because you so ungenerously pretended to be one. That was a +little mad, now, if you like!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Oh yes,’ said Lawford, ‘I am going to ask her forgiveness. I don’t know what I +didn’t vow to take her for a peace-offering if the chance should ever come—and +the courage—to make my peace with her. But now that the chance has come, and I +think the courage, it is the desire that’s gone. I don’t seem to care either +way. I feel as if I had got past making my peace with any one.’ +</p> + +<p> +But this time no answer helped him out. +</p> + +<p> +‘After all,’ he went plodding on, ‘there is more than just the mere day to day +to consider. And one doesn’t realise that one’s face actually <i>is</i> one’s +fortune without a shock. And that <i>that</i> gone, one is, as your brother +said, just like a bee come back to the wrong hive. It undermines,’ he smiled +rather bitterly, ‘one’s views rather. And it certainly shifts one’s friends. If +it hadn’t been just for my old’—he stopped dead, and again pushed slowly on—‘if +it hadn’t been for our old friend, Mr Bethany, I doubt if we should now have +had a soul on our side. I once read somewhere that wolves always chase the old +and weak and maimed out of the pack. And after all, what do <i>we</i> do? Where +do we keep the homeless and the insane? And yet, you know,’ he added +ruminatingly, ‘it is not as if mine was ever a particularly lovely or lovable +face! While as for the poor wretch behind it, well, I really cannot see what +meaning, or life even, he had before—’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Before?’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford met bravely the clear whimsical eyes. ‘Before, I was Sabathiered.’ +</p> + +<p> +Grisel laughed outright. +</p> + +<p> +‘You think,’ he retorted almost bitterly, ‘you think I am talking like a +child.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes,’ she sighed cheerfully, ‘I was quite envying you.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Well, there I am,’ said Lawford inconsequently. ‘And now; well, now, I +suppose, the whole thing’s to begin again. I can’t help beginning to wonder +what the meaning of it all is; why one’s duty should always seem so very stupid +a thing. And then, too, what <i>can</i> there be on earth that even a buried +Sabathier could desire?’ He glanced up in a really animated perplexity at the +still, dark face turned in the evening light towards the darkening valley. And +perplexity deepened into a disquieted frown—like that of a child who is roused +suddenly from a daydream by the half-forgotten question of a stranger. He +turned his eyes almost furtively away as if afraid of disturbing her; and for +awhile they sat in silence... At last he turned again almost shyly. ‘I hope +some day you will let me bring my daughter to see you.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes, yes,’ said Grisel eagerly; ‘we should both <i>love</i> it, of course. +Isn’t it curious?—I simply <i>knew</i> you had a daughter. Sheer intuition!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I say “some day,”’ said Lawford; ‘I know, though, that that some day will +never come.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Wait; just wait,’ replied the quiet confident voice, ‘that will come too. One +thing at a time, Mr Lawford. You’ve won your old self back again; you’ll win +your old love of life back again in a little while; never fear. Oh, don’t I +know that awful Land’s End after illness; and that longing, too, that gnawing +longing, too, for Ultima Thule. So, it’s a bargain between us that you bring +your daughter soon.’ She busied herself over the tea things. ‘And, of course,’ +she added, as if it were an afterthought, looking across at him in the pale +green sunlight as she knelt, ‘you simply won’t think of going back to-night.... +Solitude, I really do think, solitude just now would be absolute madness. +You’ll write to-day and go, perhaps, to-morrow!’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford looked across in his mind at his square ungainly house, full-fronting +the afternoon sun. He tried to repress a shudder. ‘I think, do you know, I +ought to go to-day.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Well, why not? Why not? Just to reassure yourself that all’s well. And come +back here to sleep. If you’d really promise that I’d drive you in. I’d love it. +There’s the jolliest little governess-cart we sometimes hire for our picnics. +May I? You’ve no idea how much easier in our minds my brother and I would be if +you would. And then to-morrow, or at any rate the next day, you shall be +surrendered, whole and in your right mind. There, that’s a bargain too. Now we +must hurry.’ +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap19"></a> +CHAPTER NINETEEN</h2> + +<p> +Herbert himself went down to order the governess cart, and packed them in with +a rug. And in the dusk Grisel set Lawford down at the corner of his road and +drove on to an old bookseller’s with a commission from her brother, promising +to return for him in an hour. Dust and a few straws lay at rest as if in some +abstruse arrangement on the stones of the porch just as the last faint whirling +gust of sunset had left them. Shut lids of sightless indifference seemed to +greet the wanderer from the curtained windows. +</p> + +<p> +He opened the door and went in. For a moment he stood in the vacant hall; then +he peeped first into the blind-drawn dining-room, faintly, dingily sweet, like +an empty wine-bottle. He went softly on a few paces and just opening the door +looked in on the faintly glittering twilight of the drawing-room. But the +congealed stump of candle that he had set in the corner as a final rancorous +challenge to the beaten Shade was gone. He slowly and deliberately ascended the +stairs, conscious of a peculiar sense of ownership of what in even so brief an +absence had taken on so queer a look of strangeness. It was almost as if he +might be some lone heir come in the rather mournful dusk to view what +melancholy fate had unexpectedly bestowed on him. +</p> + +<p> +‘Work in’—what on earth else could this chill sense of strangeness mean? Would +he ever free his memory from that one haphazard, haunting hint? And as he stood +in the doorway of the big, calm room, which seemed even now to be stirring with +the restless shadow of these last few far-away days; now pacing sullenly to and +fro; now sitting hunched-up to think; and now lying impotent in a vain, +hopeless endeavour only for the breath of a moment to forget—he awoke out of +reverie to find himself smiling at the thought that a changed face was +practically at the mercy of an incredulous world, whereas a changed heart was +no one’s deadly dull affair but its owner’s. The merest breath of pity even +stole over him for the Sabathier who after all had dared and had needed, +perhaps, nothing like so arrogant and merciless a <i lang="fr">coup de +grâce</i> to realise that he had so ignominiously failed. +</p> + +<p> +‘But there, that’s done!’ he exclaimed out loud, not without a tinge of regret +that theories, however brilliant and bizarre, could never now be anything +else—that now indeed that the symptoms had gone, the ‘malady,’ for all who had +not been actually admitted into the shocked circle, was become nothing more +than an inanely ‘tall’ story; stuffing not even savoury enough for a goose. How +wide exactly, he wondered, would Sheila’s discreet, shocked circle prove? He +stood once more before the looking-glass, hearing again Grisel’s words in the +still green shadow of the beech-tree, ‘Except of course, horribly, horribly +ill.’ ‘What a fool, what a coward she thinks I am!’ +</p> + +<p> +There was still nearly an hour to be spent in this great barn of faded +interests. He lit a candle and descended into the kitchen. A mouse went +scampering to its hole as he pushed open the door. The memory of that ravenous +morning meal nauseated him. It was sour and very still here; he stood erect; +the air smelt faint of earth. In the breakfast-room the bookcase still swung +open. Late evening mantled the garden; and in sheer ennui again he sat down to +the table, and turned for a last not unfriendly hob-a-nob with his poor old +friend Sabathier. He would take the thing back. Herbert, of course, was going +to translate it for him. Now if the patient old Frenchman had stormed Herbert +instead—that surely would have been something like a coup! Those frenzied +books. The absurd talk of the man. Herbert was perfectly right—he could have +entertained fifty old Huguenots without turning a hair. ‘I’m such an awful +stodge.’ +</p> + +<p> +He turned the woolly leaves over very slowly. He frowned impatiently, and from +the end backwards turned them over again. Then he laid the book softly down on +the table and sat back. He stared with narrowed lids into the flame of his +quiet friendly candle. Every trace, every shred of portrait and memoir were +gone. Once more, deliberately, punctiliously, he examined page by page the +blurred and unfamiliar French—the sooty heads, the long, lean noses, the baggy +eyes passing like figures in a peepshow one by one under his hand—to the last +fragmentary and dexterously mended leaf. Yes, Sabathier was gone. Quite the old +slow Lawford smile crept over his face at the discovery. It was a smile a +little sheepish too, as he thought of Sheila’s quiet vigilance. +</p> + +<p> +And the next instant he had looked up sharply, with a sudden peculiar shrug, +and a kind of cry, like the first thin cry of an awakened child, in his mind. +Without a moment’s hesitation he climbed swiftly upstairs again to the big +sepulchral bedroom. He pressed with his fingernail the tiny spring in the +looking-glass. The empty drawer flew open. There were finger-marks still in the +dust. +</p> + +<p> +Yet, strangely enough, beneath all the clashing thoughts that came flocking +into his mind as he stood with the empty drawer in his hand, was a wounding yet +still a little amused pity for his old friend Mr Bethany. So far as he himself +was concerned the discovery—well, he would have plenty of time to consider +everything that could possibly now concern himself. Anyhow, it could only +simplify matters. +</p> + +<p> +He remembered waking to that old wave of sickening horror on the first unhappy +morning; he remembered the keen yet owlish old face blinking its deathless +friendliness at him, and the steady pressure of the cold, skinny hand. As for +Sheila, she had never done anything by halves; certainly not when it came to +throwing over a friend no longer necessary to one’s social satisfaction. But +she would edge out cleverly, magnanimously, triumphantly enough, no doubt, when +the day of reckoning should come, the day when, her nets wide spread, her bait +prepared, he must stand up before her outraged circle and positively prove +himself her lawful husband, perhaps even to the very imprint of his thumb. +</p> + +<p> +‘Poor old thing!’ he said again; and this time his pity was shared almost +equally between both witnesses to Mr Bethany’s ingenuous little document, the +loss of which had fallen so softly and pathetically that he felt only ashamed +of having discovered it so soon. +</p> + +<p> +He shut back the tell-tale drawer, and after trying to collect his thoughts in +case anything should have been forgotten, he turned with a deep trembling sigh +to descend the stairs. But on the landing he drew back at the sound of voices, +and then a footstep. Soon came the sound of a key in the lock. He blew out his +candle and leant listening over the balusters. +</p> + +<p> +‘Who’s there?’ he called quietly. +</p> + +<p> +‘Me, sir,’ came the feeble reply out of the darkness. +</p> + +<p> +‘What is it, Ada? What have you come for?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Only, sir, to see that all was safe, and you were in, sir.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes,’ he said. ‘All’s safe; and I am in. What if I had been out?’ It was like +dropping tiny pebbles into a deep well—so long after came the answering feeble +splash. +</p> + +<p> +‘Then I was to go back, sir.’ And a moment after the discreet voice floated up +with the faintest tinge of effrontery out of the hush. ‘Is that Dr Ferguson, +too sir?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘No, Ada; and please tell your mistress from me that Dr Ferguson is unlikely to +call again.’ A keen but rather forlorn smile passed over his face. ‘He’s dining +with friends no doubt at Holloway. But of course if she should want to see him +he will see her to-morrow at any hour at Mrs Lovat’s. And—Ada!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes, sir?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Say that I’m a little better; your mistress will be relieved to hear that I’m +a little better; still not <i>quite</i> myself say, but, I think, a little +better.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes, sir; and I’m sure I’m very glad to hear it,’ came fainter still. +</p> + +<p> +‘What voice was that I heard just now?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Miss Alice’s, sir; but she came quite against my wishes, and I hope you won’t +repeat it, sir. She promised if she came that mistress shouldn’t know. I was +only afraid she might disturb you, or—or Dr Ferguson. And did you say, sir, +that I was to tell mistress that he <i>might</i> be coming back?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Ah, that I don’t know; so perhaps it would be as well not to mention him at +all. Is Miss Alice there?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I said I would tell her if you were alone. But I hope you’ll understand that +it was only because she begged so. Mistress has gone to St Peter’s bazaar; and +that’s how it was.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I quite understand. Beckon to her.’ +</p> + +<p> +There came a hasty step in the hall and a hurried murmur of explanation. +Lawford heard her call as she ran up the stairs; and the next moment he had +Alice’s hand in his and they were groping together through the gloaming back +into the solitude of the empty room again. +</p> + +<p> +‘Don’t be alarmed, dear,’ he heard himself imploring. ‘Just hold tight to that +clear common sense, and above all you won’t tell? It must be our secret; a +dead, dead secret from every one, even your mother, for just a little while; +just a mere two days or so—in case. I’m—I’m better, dear.’ +</p> + +<p> +He fumbled with the little box of matches, dropped one, broke another; but at +last the candle-flame dipped, brightened, and with the door shut and the last +pale blueness of dusk at the window Lawford turned and looked at his daughter. +She stood with eyes wide open, like the eyes of a child walking in its sleep; +then twisted her fingers more tightly within his. ‘Oh, dearest, how ill, how +ill you look,’ she whispered. ‘But there, never mind—never mind. It was all a +miserable dream, then; it won’t, it can’t come back? I don’t think I could bear +its coming back. And mother told me such curious things; as if I were a child +and understood nothing. And even after I knew that you were you—I mean before I +sat up here in the dark to see you—she said that you were gone and would never +come back; that a terrible thing had happened—a disgrace which we must never +speak of; and that all the other was only a pretence to keep people from +talking. But I did not believe then, and how could I believe afterwards?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘There, never mind now, dear, what she said. It was all meant for the best, +perhaps. But here I am; and not nearly so ill as I look, Alice; and there’s +nothing more to trouble ourselves about; not even if it should be necessary for +me to go away for a time. And this is our secret, mind; ours only; just a dead +secret between you and me.’ +</p> + +<p> +They sat for awhile without speaking or stirring. And faintly along the hushed +road Lawford heard in the silence a leisurely indolent beat of little hoofs +approaching, and the sound of wheels. A sudden wave of feeling swept over him. +He took Alice’s quiet loving face in his hands and kissed her passionately. ‘Do +not so much as think of me yet, or doubt, or question: only love me, dearest. +And soon—and soon—’ +</p> + +<p> +‘We’ll just begin again, just begin again, won’t we? all three of us together, +just as we used to be. I didn’t mean to have said all those horrid things about +mother. She was only dreadfully anxious and meant everything for the best. +You’ll let me tell her soon?’ +</p> + +<p> +The haggard face turned slowly, listening. ‘I hear, I understand, but I can’t +think very clearly now, Alice; I can’t, dear; my miserable old tangled nerves. +I just stumble along as best I can. You’ll understand better when you get to be +a poor old thing like me. We must do the best we can. And of course you’ll see, +Dillie, how awfully important it is not to raise false hopes. You understand? I +mustn’t risk the least thing in the world, must I? And now goodbye; only for a +few hours now. And not a word, not a word to a single living soul.’ +</p> + +<p> +He extinguished the candle again, and led the way to the top of the stairs. +‘Are you there, Ada?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes, sir,’ answered the quiet imperturbable voice from under the black straw +brim. Alice went slowly down, but at the foot of the stairs, looking out into +the cold, blue, lamplit street she paused as if at a sudden recollection, and +ran hastily up again. +</p> + +<p> +‘There was nothing more, dear?’ She said, leaning back to peer up. +</p> + +<p> +‘“Nothing more?” What?’ +</p> + +<p> +She stood panting a little in the darkness, listening to some cautious yet +uneasy thought that seemed to haunt her mind. ‘I thought—it seemed there was +something we had not said, something I could not understand. But there, it is +nothing! You know what a fanciful old silly I am. You do love me? Quite as much +as ever?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘More, sweetheart, more!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Good-night again, then; and God bless you, dear.’ +</p> + +<p> +The outer door closed softly, the footsteps died away. Lawford still hesitated. +He took hold of the stairs above his head as he stood on the landing and leaned +his head upon his hands, striving calmly to disentangle the perplexity of his +thoughts. His pulses were beating in his ear with a low muffled roar. He looked +down between the blinds to where against the blue of the road beneath the +straggling yellow beams of the lamp stood the little cart and drooping, shaggy +pony, and Grisel sitting quietly there awaiting him. He shut his eyes as if in +hope by some convulsive effort of mind to break through this subtle glasslike +atmosphere of dream that had stolen over consciousness, and blotted out the +significance, almost the meaning of the past. He turned abruptly. Empty as the +empty rooms around him, unanswering were mind and heart. Life was a tale told +by an idiot—signifying nothing. +</p> + +<p> +He paused at the head of the staircase. And even then the doubt confronted him: +Would he ever come back? Who knows? he thought; and again stood pondering, +arguing, denying. At last he seemed to have come to a decision. He made his way +downstairs, opened and left ajar a long narrow window in a passage to the +garden beyond the kitchen. He turned on his heel as he reached the gate and +waved his hand as if in a kind of forlorn mockery towards the darkly glittering +windows. The drowsy pony awoke at touch of the whip. +</p> + +<p> +Grisel lifted the rug and squeezed a little closer into the corner. She had +drawn a veil over her face, so that to Lawford her eyes seemed to be dreaming +in a little darkness of their own as he laid his hand on the side of the cart. +‘It’s a most curious thing,’ he said, ‘but peeping down at you just now when +the sound of the wheels came, a memory came clearly back to me of years and +years ago—of my mother. She used to come to fetch me at school in a little cart +like this, and a little pony just like this, with a thick dusty coat. And once +I remember I was simply sick of everything, a failure, and fagged out, and all +that, and was looking out in the twilight; I fancy even it was autumn too. It +was a little side staircase window; I was horribly homesick. And she came quite +unexpectedly. I shall never forget it—the misery, and then, her coming.’ He +lifted his eyes, cowed with the incessant struggle, and watched her face for +some time in silence. ‘Ought I to stay?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I see no “ought,”’ she said. ‘No one is there?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Only a miserable broken voice out of a broken cage—called Conscience.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Don’t you think, perhaps, that even <i>that</i> has a good many +disguises—convention, cowardice, weakness, ennui; they all take their turn at +hooting in its feathers? You must, you really must have rest. You don’t know; +you don’t see; I do. Just a little snap, some one last exquisite thread gives +way, and then it is all over. You see I have even to try to frighten you, for I +can’t tell you how you distress me.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Why do I distress you?—my face, my story you mean?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘No; I mean you: your trouble, that horrible empty house, and—oh, dear me, yes, +your courage too.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Listen,’ said Lawford, stooping forward. He could scarcely see the pale, +veiled face through this mist that had risen up over his eyes. ‘I have no +courage apart from you; no courage and no hope. Ask me to come!—a stranger with +no history, no mockery, no miserable rant of a grave and darkness and fear +behind me. Are we not all haunted—every one? That forgotten, and the fool I +was, and the vacillating, and the pretence—oh, how it all sweeps clear before +me; without a will, without a hope or glimpse or whisper of courage. Be just +the memory of my mother, the face, the friend I’ve never seen; the voice that +every dream leaves echoing. Ask me to come.’ +</p> + +<p> +She sat unstirring; and then as if by some uncontrollable impulse stooped a +little closer to him and laid her gloved hand on his. +</p> + +<p> +‘I hear, you know; I hear too,’ she whispered. ‘But we mustn’t listen. Come +now. It’s growing late.’ +</p> + +<p> +The little village echoed back from its stone walls the clatter of the pony’s +hoofs. Night had darkened to its deepest when their lamp shone white on the +wicket in the hedge. They had scarcely spoken. Lawford had simply watched pass +by, almost without a thought, the arching trees, the darkening fields; had +watched rise up in a mist of primrose light the harvest moon to shine in +saffron on the faces and shoulders of the few wayfarers they met, or who passed +them by. The still grave face beneath the shadow of its veil had never turned, +though the moon poured all her flood of brilliance upon the dark profile. And +once when as if in sudden alarm he had lifted his head and looked at her, a +sudden doubt had assailed him so instantly that he had half put out his hand to +touch her, and had as quickly withdrawn it, lest her beauty and stillness +should be, even as the moment’s fancy had suggested, only a far-gone memory +returned in dream. +</p> + +<p> +Herbert hailed them from the darkness of an open window. He came down, and they +talked a little in the cold air of the garden. He lit a cigarette, and climbed +languidly into the cart, and drove the drowsy little pony off into the +moonlight. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap20"></a> +CHAPTER TWENTY</h2> + +<p> +It was a quiet supper the three friends sat down to. Herbert sat narrowing his +eyes over his thoughts, which, when the fancy took him, he scattered out upon +the others’ silence. Lawford apparently had not yet shaken himself free from +the sorcery of the moonlight. His eyes shone dark and full like those of a +child who has trespassed beyond its hour for bed, and sits marvelling at +reality in a waking dream. +</p> + +<p> +Long after they had bidden each other good-night, long after Herbert had +trodden on tiptoe with his candle past his closed door, Lawford sat leaning on +his arms at the open window, staring out across the motionless moonlit trees +that seemed to stand like draped and dreaming pilgrims, come to the peace of +their Nirvana at last beside the crashing music of the waters. And he himself, +the self that never sleeps beneath the tides and waves of consciousness, was +listening, too, almost as unmovedly and unheedingly to the thoughts that +clashed in conflict through his brain. +</p> + +<p> +Why, in a strange transitory life was one the slave of these small cares? What +if even in that dark pit beneath, which seemed to whisper Lethe to the +tumultuous, swirling waters—what if there, too, were merely a beginning again, +and to seek a slumbering refuge there merely a blind and reiterated plunge into +the heat and tumult of another day? Who was that poor, dark, homeless ghoul, +Sabathier? Who was this Helen of an impossible dream? Her face with its strange +smile, her eyes with their still pity and rapt courage had taken hope away. +‘Here’s not your rest,’ cried one insistent voice; ‘she is the mystery that +haunts day and night, past all the changing of the restless hours. Chance has +given you back eyes to see, a heart that can be broken. Chance and the +stirrings of a long-gone life have torn down the veil age spins so thick and +fast. Pride and ambition; what dull fools men are! Effort and duty, what dull +fools men are!’ He listened on and on to these phantom pleadings and to the +rather coarse old Lawford conscience grunting them mercilessly down, too weary +even to try to rest. +</p> + +<p> +Rooks at dawn came sweeping beneath the turquoise of the sky. He saw their +sharp-beaked heads turn this way, that way, as they floated on outspread wings +across the misty world. Except for the hoarse roar of the water under the huge +thin-leafed trees, not a sound was stirring. ‘One thing,’ he seemed to hear +himself mutter as he turned with a shiver from the morning air, ‘it won’t be +for long. You can, at least, poor devil, wait the last act out.’ If in this +foolish hustling mob of the world, hired anywhere and anywhen for the one poor +dubious wage of a penny—if it was only his own small dull part to carry a mock +spear, and shout huzza with the rest—there was nothing for it, he grunted +obstinately to himself, shout he would with the loudest. +</p> + +<p> +He threw himself on to the bed with eyes so wearied with want of sleep it +seemed they had lost their livelong skill in finding it. Not the echo of +triumph nor even a sigh of relief stirred the torpor of his mind. He knew +vaguely that what had been the misery and madness of the last few days was +gone. But the thought had no power to move him now. Sheila’s good sense, and Mr +Bethany’s stubborn loyalty were alike old stories that had lost their savour +and meaning. Gone, too, was the need for that portentous family gathering that +had sat so often in his fancy during these last few days around his dining-room +table, discussing with futile decorum the problem of how to hush him up, to +muffle him down. Half dreaming, half awake, he saw the familiar door slowly +open and, like the timely hero in a melodrama, his own figure appear before the +stricken and astonished company. His eyes opened half-fearfully, and glanced up +in the morning twilight. Their perplexity gave place to a quiet, almost vacant +smile; the lids slowly closed again, and at last the lean hands twitched awhile +in sleep. +</p> + +<p> +Next morning he spent rummaging among the old books, dipping listlessly here +and there as the tasteless fancy took him, while Herbert sat writing with +serene face and lifted eyebrows at his open window. But the unfamiliar long +S’s, the close type, and the spelling of the musty old books wearied eye and +mind. What he read, too, however far-fetched, or lively, or sententious, or +gross, seemed either to be of the same texture as what had become his everyday +experience, and so baffled him with its nearness, or else was only the +meaningless ramblings of an idle pen. And this, he thought to himself, looking +covertly up at the spruce clear-cut profile at the window, this is what Herbert +had called Life. +</p> + +<p> +‘Am I interrupting you, Herbert; are you very busy?’ he asked at last, taking +refuge on a chair in a far corner of the room. +</p> + +<p> +‘Bless me, no; not a bit—not a bit,’ said Herbert amiably, laying down his pen. +‘I’m afraid the old leatherjackets have been boring you. It’s a habit this +beastly reading; this gorge and glint and fever all at second-hand—purely a bad +habit, like morphia, like laudanum. But once in, you know there’s no recovery. +Anyhow, I’m neck-deep, and to struggle would be simply to drown.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I was only going to say how sorry I am for having left Sabathier at home.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘My dear fellow—’ began Herbert reassuringly. +</p> + +<p> +‘It was only because I wanted so very much to have your translation. I get +muddled up with other things groping through the dictionary.’ +</p> + +<p> +Herbert surveyed him critically. ‘What exactly is your interest now, Lawford? +You don’t mean that my old “theory” has left any sting now?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘No sting; oh no. I was only curious. But you yourself still think it really, +don’t you?’ +</p> + +<p> +Herbert turned for a moment to the open window. +</p> + +<p> +‘I was simply trying then to find something to fit the facts as you experienced +them. But now that the facts have gone—and they have, haven’t they?—exit, of +course, my theory!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I see,’ was the cryptic answer. ‘And yet, Herbert,’ Lawford solemnly began +again, ‘it has changed me; even in my way of thinking. When I shut my eyes +now—I only discovered it by chance—I see immediately faces quite strange to me; +or places, sometimes thronged with people; and once an old well with some one +sitting in the shadow. I can’t tell you how clearly, and yet it is all +altogether different from a dream. Even when I sit with my eyes open, I am +conscious, as it were, of a kind of faint, colourless mirage. In the old days—I +mean before Widderstone, what I saw was only what I’d seen already. Nothing +came uncalled for, unexplained. This makes the old life seem so blank; I did +not know what extraordinarily <i>real</i> things I was doing without. And +whether for that reason or another, I can’t quite make out what in fact I did +want then, and was always fretting and striving for. I can see no wisdom or +purpose in anything now but to get to one’s journey’s end as quickly and +bravely as one can. And even then, even if we do call life a journey, and death +the inn we shall reach at last in the evening when it’s over; that, too, I feel +will be only as brief a stopping-place as any other inn would be. Our +experience here is so scanty and shallow—nothing more than the moment of the +continual present. Surely that must go on, even if one does call it eternity. +And so we shall all have to begin again. Probably Sabathier himself.... But +there, what on earth <i>are</i> we, Herbert, when all is said? Who is it +has—has done all this for us—what kind of self? And to what possible end? Is it +that the clockwork has been wound up and must still jolt on a while with +jarring wheels? Will it never run down, do you think?’ +</p> + +<p> +Herbert smiled faintly, but made no answer. +</p> + +<p> +‘You see,’ continued Lawford, in the same quiet, dispassionate undertone, ‘I +wouldn’t mind if it was only myself. But there are so many of us, so many +selves, I mean; and they all seem to have a voice in the matter. What is the +reality to this infernal dream?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘The reality is, Lawford, that you are fretting your life out over this rotten +illusion. Be guided by me just this once. We’ll go, all three of us, a good +ten-mile walk to-day, and thoroughly tire you out. And to-night you shall sleep +here—a really sound, refreshing sleep. Then to-morrow, whole and hale, back you +shall go; honestly. It’s only professional strong men should ask questions. +Babes like you and me must keep to slops.’ +</p> + +<p> +So, though Lawford made no answer, it was agreed. Before noon the three of them +had set out on their walk across the fields. And after rambling on just as +caprice took them, past reddening blackberry bushes and copses of hazel, and +flaming beech, they sat down to spread out their meal on the slope of a hill, +overlooking quiet ploughed fields and grazing cattle. Herbert stretched himself +with his back to the earth, and his placid face to the pale vacant sky, while +Lawford, even more dispirited after his walk, wandered up to the crest of the +hill. +</p> + +<p> +At the foot of the hill, upon the other side, lay a farm and its out-buildings, +and a pool of water beneath a group of elms. It was vacant in the sunlight, and +the water vividly green with a scum of weed. And about half a mile beyond stood +a cluster of cottages and an old towered church. He gazed idly down, listening +vaguely to the wailing of a curlew flitting anxiously to and fro above the +broken solitude of its green hill. And it seemed as if a thin and dark cloud +began to be quietly withdrawn from over his eyes. Hill and wailing cry and barn +and water faded out. And he was staring as if in an endless stillness at an +open window against which the sun was beating in a bristling torrent of gold, +while out of the garden beyond came the voice of some evening bird singing with +such an unspeakable ecstasy of grief it seemed it must be perched upon the +confines of another world. The light gathered to a radiance almost intolerable, +driving back with its raining beams some memory, forlorn, remorseless, remote. +His body stood dark and senseless, rocking in the air on the hillside as if +bereft of its spirit. Then his hands were drawn over his eyes. He turned +unsteadily and made his way, as if through a thick, drizzling haze, slowly +back. +</p> + +<p> +‘What is that—there?’ he said almost menacingly, standing with bloodshot eyes +looking down upon Herbert. +</p> + +<p> +‘“That!”—what?’ said Herbert, glancing up startled from his book. ‘Why, what’s +wrong, Lawford?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘That,’ said Lawford sullenly, yet with a faintly mournful cadence in his +voice; ‘those fields and that old empty farm—that village over there? Why did +you bring me here?’ +</p> + +<p> +Grisel had not stirred. ‘The village...’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Ssh!’ she said, catching her brother’s sleeve; ‘that’s Detcham, yes, Detcham.’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford turned wide vacant eyes on her. He shook his head and shuddered. ‘No, +no; not Detcham. I know it; I know it; but it has gone out of my mind. Not +Detcham; I’ve been there before; don’t look at me. Horrible, horrible. It takes +me back—I can’t think. I stood there, trying, trying; it’s all in a blur. Don’t +ask me—a dream.’ +</p> + +<p> +Grisel leaned forward and touched his hand. ‘Don’t think; don’t even try. Why +should you? We can’t; we <i>mustn’t</i> go back.’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford, still gazing fixedly, turned again a darkened face towards the steep +of the hill. ‘I think, you know,’ he said, stooping and whispering, ‘<i>he</i> +would know—the window and the sun and the singing. And oh, of course it was too +late. You understand—too late. And once... you can’t go back; oh no. You won’t +leave me? You see, if you go, it would only be all. I could not be quite so +alone. But Detcham—Detcham? perhaps you will not trust me—tell me? That was not +the name.’ He shuddered violently and turned dog-like beseeching eyes. +‘To-morrow—yes, to-morrow,’ he said, ‘I will promise anything if you will not +leave me now. Once—’ But again the thread running so faintly through that +inextricable maze of memory eluded him. ‘So long as you won’t leave me now!’ he +implored her. +</p> + +<p> +She was vainly trying to win back her composure, and could not answer him at +once.... +</p> + +<p> +In the evening after supper Grisel sat her guest down in front of a big wood +fire in the old book-room, where, staring into the playing flames, he could +fall at peace into the almost motionless reverie which he seemed merely to +harass and weary himself by trying to disperse. She opened the little piano at +the far end of the room and played on and on as fancy led—Chopin and Beethoven, +a fugue from Bach, and lovely forlorn old English airs, till the music seemed +not only a voice persuading, pondering, and lamenting, but gathered about +itself the hollow surge of the water and the darkness; wistful and clear, as +the thoughts of a solitary child. Ever and again a log burnt through its +strength, and falling amid sparks, stirred, like a restless animal, the +stillness; or Herbert in his corner lifted his head to glance towards his +visitor, and to turn another page. At last the music, too, fell silent, and +Lawford stood up with his candle in his hand and eyed with a strange fixity +brother and sister. His glance wandered slowly round the quiet flame-lit room. +</p> + +<p> +‘You won’t,’ he said, stooping towards them as if in extreme confidence, ‘you +won’t much notice? They come and go. I try not to—to speak. It’s the only way +through. It is not that I don’t know they’re only dreams. But if once the—the +others thought there had been any tampering’—he tapped his forehead +meaningly—‘here: if once they thought <i>that</i>, it would, you know, be quite +over then. How could I prove...?’ He turned cautiously towards the door, and +with laborious significance nodded his head at them. +</p> + +<p> +Herbert bent down and held out his long hands to the fire. ‘Tampering, my dear +chap: That’s what the lump said to the leaven.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes, yes,’ said Lawford, putting out his hand, ‘but you know what I mean, +Herbert. Anything I tried to do then would be quite, quite hopeless. That would +be poisoning the wells.’ +</p> + +<p> +They watched him out of the room, and listened till quite distinctly in the +still night-shaded house they heard his door gently close. Then, as if by +consent, they turned and looked long and questioningly into each other’s faces. +</p> + +<p> +‘Then you are not afraid?’ Herbert said quietly. +</p> + +<p> +Grisel gazed steadily on, and almost imperceptibly shook her head. +</p> + +<p> +‘You mean?’ he questioned her; but still he had again to read her answer in her +eyes. +</p> + +<p> +‘Oh, very well, Grisel,’ he said quietly, ‘you know best,’ and returned once +more to his writing. +</p> + +<p> +For an hour or two Lawford slept heavily, so heavily that when a little after +midnight he awoke, with his face towards the uncurtained window, though for +many minutes he lay brightly confronting all Orion, that from blazing helm to +flaming dog at heel filled high the glimmering square, he could not lift or +stir his cold and leaden limbs. He rose at last and threw off the burden of his +bedclothes, and rested awhile, as if freed from the heaviness of an +unrememberable nightmare. But so clear was his mind and so extraordinarily +refreshed he seemed in body that sleep for many hours would not return again. +And he spent almost all the remainder of the lagging darkness pacing softly to +and fro; one face only before his eyes, the one sure thing, the one thing +unattainable in a world of phantoms. +</p> + +<p> +Herbert waited on in vain for his guest next morning, and after wandering up +and down the mossy lawn at the back of the house, went off cheerfully at last +alone for his dip. When he returned Lawford was in his place at the +breakfast-table. He sat on, moody and constrained, until even Herbert’s +haphazard talk trickled low. +</p> + +<p> +‘I fancy my sister is nursing a headache,’ he said at last, ‘but she’ll be down +soon. And I’m afraid from the looks of you, Lawford, your night was not +particularly restful.’ He felt his way very heedfully. ‘Perhaps we walked you a +little too far yesterday. We are so used to tramping that—’ Lawford kept +thoughtful eyes fixed on the deprecating face. +</p> + +<p> +‘I see what it is, Herbert—you are humouring me again. I have been wracking my +brains in vain to remember what exactly <i>did</i> happen yesterday. I feel as +if it was all sunk oceans deep in sleep. I get so far—and then I’m done. It +won’t give up a hint. But you really mustn’t think I’m an invalid, or—or in my +second childhood. The truth is,’ he added, ‘it’s only my <i>first</i>, come +back again. But now that I’ve got so far, now that I’m really better, I—’ He +broke off rather vacantly, as if afraid of his own confidence. ‘I must be +getting on,’ he summed up with an effort, ‘and that’s the solemn fact. I keep +on forgetting I’m—I’m a ratepayer!’ +</p> + +<p> +Herbert sat round in his chair. ‘You see, Lawford, the very term is little else +than Double-Dutch to me. As a matter of fact Grisel sends all my hush-money to +the horrible people that do the cleaning up, as it were. I can’t catch their +drift. Government to me is merely the spectacle of the clever, or the specious, +managing the dull. It deals merely with the physical, and just the fringe of +consciousness. I am not joking. I think I follow you. All I mean is that the +obligations—mainly tepid, I take it—that are luring you back to the fold would +be the very ones that would scare me quickest off. The imagination, the appeal +faded: we’re dead.’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford opened his mouth; ‘<i>Temporarily</i> tepid,’ he at last all but +coughed out. +</p> + +<p> +‘Oh yes, of course,’ said Herbert intelligently. ‘Only temporarily. It’s this +beastly gregariousness that’s the devil. The very thought of it undoes me—with +an absolute shock of sheepishness. I suddenly realise my human nakedness: that +here we are, little better than naked animals, bleating behind our illusory +wattles on the slopes of—of infinity. And nakedness, after all, is a wholesome +thing to realize only when one thinks too much of one’s clothes. I peer +sometimes, feebly enough, out of my wool, and it seems to me that all these +busybodies, all these fact-devourers, all this news-reading rabble, are nothing +brighter than very dull-witted children trying to play an imaginative game, +much too deep for their poor reasons. I don’t mean that <i>your</i> wanting to +go home is anything gregarious, but I do think <i>their</i> insisting on your +coming back at once might be. And I know you won’t visit this stuff on me as +anything more than just my “scum,” as Grisel calls the fine flower of my maiden +meditations. All that I really <i>want</i> to say is that we should both be +more than delighted if you’d stay just as long as it will not be a bore for you +to stay. Stay till you’re heartily tired of us. Go back now, if you +<i>must</i>; tell them how much better you are. Bolt off to a nerve specialist. +He’ll say complete rest—change of scene, and all that. They all do. Instinct +via intellect. And why not take your rest here? We are such miserably dull +company to one another it would be a greater pleasure to have you with us than +I can say. I mean it from the very bottom of my heart. Do!’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford listened. ‘I wish—,’ he began, and stopped dead again. ‘Anyhow, I’ll go +back. I am afraid, Herbert, I’ve been playing truant. It was all very well +while—To tell you the truth I can’t think <i>quite</i> straight yet. But it +won’t last for ever. Besides—well, anyhow, I’ll go back.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Right you are,’ said Herbert, pretending to be cheerful. ‘You can’t expect, +you really can’t, everything to come right straight away. Just have patience. +And now, let’s go out and sit in the sun. They’ve mixed September up with May.’ +</p> + +<p> +And about half an hour afterwards he glanced up from his book to find his +visitor fast asleep in his garden chair. +</p> + +<p> +Grisel had taken her brother’s place, with a little pile of needlework beside +her on the grass, when Lawford again opened his eyes under the rosy shade of a +parasol. He watched her for a while, without speaking. +</p> + +<p> +‘How long have I been asleep?’ he said at last. +</p> + +<p> +She started and looked up from her needle. +</p> + +<p> +‘That depends on how long you have been awake,’ she said, smiling. ‘My brother +tells me,’ she went on, beginning to stitch, ‘that you have made up your mind +to leave us to-day. Perhaps we are only flattering ourselves it has been a +rest. But if it has—is that, do you think, quite wise?’ +</p> + +<p> +He leant forward and hid his face in his hands. ‘It’s because—it’s because it’s +the only “must” I can see.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘But even “musts”—well, we have to be sure even of “musts,” haven’t we? Are +<i>you</i>?’ She glanced up and for an instant their eyes met, and the falling +water seemed to be sounding out of a distance so remote it might be but the +echo of a dream. She stooped once more over her work. +</p> + +<p> +‘Supposing,’ he said very slowly, and almost as if speaking to himself, +‘supposing Sabathier—and you know he’s merely like a friend now one mustn’t be +seen talking to—supposing he came back; what then?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Oh, but Sabathier’s gone: he never really came. It was only a fancy—a mood. It +was only you—another you.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Who was that yesterday, then?’ +</p> + +<p> +She glanced at him swiftly and knew the question was but a venture. +</p> + +<p> +‘Yesterday?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Oh, very well,’ he said fretfully, ‘you too! But if he did, if he did, come +really back: “prey” and all?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘What is the riddle?’ she said, taking a deep breath and facing him brightly. +</p> + +<p> +‘Would <i>my</i> “must” still be <i>his</i>?’ The face he raised to her, as he +leaned forward under the direct light of the sun, was so colourless, cadaverous +and haggard, the thought crossed her mind that it did indeed seem little more +than a shadowy mask that but one hour of darkness might dispel. +</p> + +<p> +‘You said, you know, we did win through. Why then should we be even thinking of +defeat now?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘“We”!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Oh no, you!’ she cried triumphantly. +</p> + +<p> +‘You do not answer my question.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Nor you mine! It <i>was</i> a glorious victory. Is there the ghost of a reason +why you should cast your mind back? Is there, now?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Only,’ said Lawford, looking patiently up into her face, ‘only because I love +you’: and listened in the silence to the words as one may watch a bird that has +escaped for ever and irrevocably out of its cage, steadily flying on and on +till lost to sight. +</p> + +<p> +For an instant the grey eyes faltered. ‘But that, surely,’ she began in a low +voice, still steadily sewing, ‘that was our compact last night—that you should +let me help, that you should trust me just as you trusted the mother years ago +who came in the little cart with the shaggy dusty pony to the homesick boy +watching at the window. Perhaps,’ she added, her fingers trembling, ‘in this +odd shuffle of souls and faces, I <i>am</i> that mother, and most frightfully +anxious you should not give in. Why, even because of the tiredness, even +because the cause seems vain, you must still fight on—wouldn’t she have said +it? Surely there are prizes, a daughter, a career, no end! And even they +gone—still the self undimmed, undaunted, that took its drubbing like a man.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I know you know I’m all but crazed; you see this wretched mind all littered +and broken down; look at me like that, then. Forget even you have befriended me +and pretended—Why must I blunder on and on like this? Oh, Grisel, my friend, my +friend, if only you loved me!’ +</p> + +<p> +Tears clouded her eyes. She turned vaguely as if for a hiding-place. ‘We can’t +talk here. How mad the day is. Listen, listen! I do—I do love you—mother and +woman and friend—from the very moment you came. It’s all so clear, so clear: +<i>that</i>, and your miserable “must,” my friend. Come, we will go away by +ourselves a little, and talk. That way. I’ll meet you by the gate.’ +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap21"></a> +CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE</h2> + +<p> +She came out into the sunlight, and they went through the little gate together. +She walked quickly, without speaking, over the bridge, past a little cottage +whose hollyhocks leaned fading above its low flint wall. Skirting a field of +stubble, she struck into a wood by a path that ran steeply up the hillside. And +by and by they came to a glen where the woodmen of a score of years ago had +felled the trees, leaving a green hollow of saplings in the midst of their +towering neighbours. +</p> + +<p> +‘There,’ she said, holding out her hand to him, ‘now we are alone. Just six +hours or so—and then the sun will be there,’ she pointed to the tree-tops to +the west, ‘and then you will have to go; for good, for good—you your way, and I +mine. What a tangle—a tangle is this life of ours. Could I have dreamt we +should ever be talking like this, you and I? Friends of an hour. What will you +think of me? Does it matter? Don’t speak. Say nothing—poor face, poor hands. If +only there were something to look to—to pray to!’ She bent over his hand and +pressed it to her breast. ‘What worlds we’ve seen together, you and I. And +then—another parting.’ +</p> + +<p> +They wandered on a little way, and came back and listened to the first few +birds that flew up into the higher branches, noonday being past, to sing. +</p> + +<p> +They talked, and were silent, and talked again with out question, or sadness, +or regret, or reproach; she mocking even at themselves, mocking at this +‘change’—‘Why, and yet without it, would you ever even have dreamed once a poor +fool of a Frenchman went to his restless grave for me—for me? Need we +understand? Were we told to pry? Who made us human must be human too. Why must +we take such care, and make such a fret—this soul? I know it, I know it; it is +all we have—“to save,” they say, poor creatures. No, never to <i>spend</i>, and +so they daren’t for a solitary instant lift it on the finger from its cage. +Well, we have; and now, soon, back it must go, back it must go, and try its +best to whistle the day out. And yet, do you know, perhaps the very freedom +does a little shake its—its monotony. It’s true, you see, they have lived a +long time; these Worldly Wisefolk they were wise before they were swaddled.... +</p> + +<p> +‘There, and you are hungry?’ she asked him, laughing in his eyes. ‘Of course, +of course you are—scarcely a mouthful since that first still wonderful supper. +And you haven’t slept a wink, except like a tired-out child after its first +party, on that old garden chair. I sat and watched, and yes, almost hoped you’d +never wake in case—in case. Come along, see, down there. I can’t go home just +yet. There’s a little old inn—we’ll go and sit down there—as if we were really +trying to be romantic! I know the woman quite well; we can talk there—just the +day out.’ +</p> + +<p> +They sat at a little table in the garden of ‘The Cherry Trees,’ its thick green +apple branches burdened with ripened fruit. And Grisel tried to persuade him to +eat and drink, ‘for to-morrow we die,’ she said, her hands trembling, her face +as it were veiled with a faint mysterious light. +</p> + +<p> +‘There are dozens and dozens of old stories, you know,’ she said, leaning on +her elbows, ‘dozens and dozens, meaning only us. You must, you must eat; look, +just an apple. We’ve got to say good-bye. And faintness will double the +difficulty.’ She lightly touched his hand as if to compel him to smile with +her. ‘There, I’ll peel it; and this is Eden; and soon it will be the cool of +the evening. And then, oh yes, the voice will come. What nonsense I am talking. +Never mind.’ +</p> + +<p> +They sat on in the quiet sunshine, and a spider slid softly through the air and +with busy claws set to its nets; and those small ghosts the robins went +whistling restlessly among the heavy boughs. +</p> + +<p> +A child presently came out of the porch of the inn into the garden, and stood +with its battered doll in its arms, softly watching them awhile. But when +Grisel smiled and tried to coax her over, she burst out laughing and ran in +again. +</p> + +<p> +Lawford stooped forward on his chair with a groan. ‘You see,’ he said, ‘the +whole world mocks me. You say “this evening”; need it be, must it be this +evening? If you only knew how far they have driven me. If you only knew what we +should only detest each other for saying and for listening to. The whole +thing’s dulled and staled. Who wants a changeling? Who wants a painted bird? +Who does not loathe the converted?—and I’m converted to Sabathier’s God. Should +we be sitting here talking like this if it were not so? I can’t, I can’t go +back.’ +</p> + +<p> +She rose and stood with her hand pressed over her mouth, watching him. +</p> + +<p> +‘Won’t you understand?’ he continued. ‘I am an outcast—a felon caught +red-handed, come in the flesh to a hideous and righteous judgment. I hear +myself saying all these things; and yet, Grisel, I do, I do love you with all +the dull best I ever had. Not now, then; I don’t ask new even. I can, I would +begin again. God knows my face has changed enough even as it is. Think of me as +that poor wandering ghost of yours; how easily I could hide away—in your +memory; and just wait, wait for you. In time even this wild futile madness too +would fade away. Then I could come back. May I try?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I can’t answer you. I can’t reason. Only, still, I do know, talk, put off, +forget as I may, must is must. Right and wrong, who knows what <i>they</i> +mean, except that one’s to be done and one’s to be forsworn; or—forgive, my +friend, the truest thing I ever said—or else we lose the savour of both. Oh, +then, and I know, too, you’d weary of me. I know you, Monsieur Nicholas, better +than you can ever know yourself, though you have risen from your grave. You +follow a dream, no voice or face or flesh and blood; and not to do what the one +old raven within you cries you <i>must,</i> would be in time to hate the very +sound of my footsteps. You shall go back, poor turncoat, and face the +clearness, the utterly more difficult, bald, and heartless clearness, as +together we faced the dark. Life is a little while. And though I have no words +to tell what always are and must be foolish reasons because they are not +reasons at all but ghosts of memory, I know in my heart that to face the worst +is your only hope of peace. Should I have staked so much on your finding that, +and now throw up the game? Don’t let us talk any more. I’ll walk half the way, +perhaps. Perhaps I will walk <i>all</i> the way. I think my brother guesses—at +least <i>my</i> madness. I’ve talked and talked him nearly past his patience. +And then, when you are quite safely, oh yes, quite safely and soundly gone, +then I shall go away for a little, so that we can’t even hear each other speak, +except in dreams. Life!—well, I always thought it was much too plain a tale to +have as dull an ending. And with us the powers beyond have played a newer +trick, that’s all. Another hour, and we will go. Till then there’s just the +solitary walk home and only the dull old haunted house that hoards as many +ghosts as we ourselves to watch our coming.’ +</p> + +<p> +Evening began to shine between the trees; they seemed to stand aflame, with a +melancholy rapture in their uplifted boughs above their fading coats. The +fields of the garnered harvest shone with a golden stillness, awhir with +shimmering flocks of starlings. And the old birds that had sung in the spring +sang now amid the same leaves, grown older too to give them harbourage. +</p> + +<p> +Herbert was sitting in his room when they returned, nursing his teacup on his +knee while he pretended to be reading, with elbow propped on the table. +</p> + +<p> +‘Here’s Nicholas Sabathier, my dear, come to say goodbye awhile,’ said Grisel. +She stood for a moment in her white gown, her face turned towards the clear +green twilight of the open window. ‘I have promised to walk part of the way +with him. But I think first we must have some tea. No; he flatly refuses to be +driven. We are going to walk.’ +</p> + +<p> +The two friends were left alone, face to face with a rather difficult silence, +only the least degree of nervousness apparent, so far as Herbert was concerned, +in that odd aloof sustained air of impersonality that had so baffled his +companion in their first queer talk together. +</p> + +<p> +‘Your sister said just now, Herbert,’ blurted Lawford at last. ‘“Here’s +Nicholas Sabathier come to say good-bye” well, I—what I want you to understand +is that it <i>is</i> Sabathier, the worst he ever was; but also that it +<i>is</i> “good-bye.”’ +</p> + +<p> +Herbert slowly turned. ‘I don’t quite see why “goodbye,” Lawford. And—frankly, +there is nothing to explain. We have chosen to live such a very out-of-the-way +life,’ he went on, as if following up a train of thought.... ‘The truth is if +one wants to live at all—one’s own life, I mean—there’s no time for many +friends. And just steadfastly regarding your neighbour’s tail as you follow it +down into the Nowhere—it’s that that seems to me the deadliest form of +hypnotism. One must simply go one’s own way, doing one’s best to free one’s +mind of cant—and I dare say clearing some excellent stuff out with the rubbish. +One consequence is that I don’t think, however foolhardy it may be to say so, I +don’t think I care a groat for any opinion as human as my own, good or bad. My +sister’s a million times a better woman than I am a man. What possibly could +there be, then, for me to say?’ He turned with a nervous smile. ‘Why should it +be good-bye?’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford glanced involuntarily towards the door that stood in shadow duskily +ajar. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘we have talked, and we think it must be that, until, at +least,’ he smiled faintly, ‘I can come as quietly as your old ghost you told me +of; and in that case it may not be so very long to wait.’ +</p> + +<p> +Their eyes met fleetingly across the still, listening room. ‘The more I think +of it,’ Lawford pushed slowly on, ‘the less I understand the frantic +purposelessness of all that has happened to me. Until I went down, as you said, +“a godsend of a little Miss Muffet,” and the inconceivable farce came off, I +was fairly happy, fairly contented to dance my little wooden dance and wait +till the showman should put me down into his box again. And now—well, here I +am. The whole thing has gone by and scarcely left a trace of its visit. Here I +am for all my friends to swear to; and yet, Herbert, if you’ll forgive me +troubling you with this stuff about myself, not a single belief, or thought, or +desire remains unchanged. You will remember all that, I hope. It’s not, of +course, the ghost of an apology, only the mere facts.’ +</p> + +<p> +Herbert rose and paced slowly across to the window. ‘The longer I live, +Lawford, the more I curse this futile gift of speech. Here am I, wanting to +tell you, to say out frankly what, if mind could appeal direct to mind, would +be merely as the wind passing through the leaves of a tree with just one—one +multitudinous rustle, but which, if I tried to put into words—well, daybreak +would find us still groping on....’ He turned; a peculiar wry smile on his +face. ‘It’s a dumb world: but there we are. And some day you’ll come again.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Well,’ said Lawford, as if with an almost hopeless effort to turn thought into +such primitive speech, ‘that’s where we stand, then.’ He got up suddenly like a +man awakened in the midst of unforeseen danger, ‘Where is your sister?’ he +cried, looking into the shadow. And as if in actual answer to his entreaty, +they heard the clinking of the cups on the little, old, green lacquer tray she +was at that moment carrying into the room. She sat down on the window seat and +put the tray down beside her. ‘It will be before dark even now,’ she said, +glancing out at the faintly burning skies. +</p> + +<p> +They had trudged on together with almost as deep a sense of physical exhaustion +as peasants have who have been labouring in the fields since daybreak. And a +little beyond the village, before the last, long road began that led in +presently to the housed and scrupulous suburb, she stopped with a sob beside an +old scarred milestone by the wayside. ‘This—is as far as I can go,’ she said. +She stooped, and laid her hand on the cold moss-grown surface of the stone. +‘Even now it’s wet with dew.’ She rose again and looked strangely into his +face. ‘Yes, yes, here it is,’ she said, ‘oh, and worse, worse than any fear. +But nothing now can trouble you again of that. We’re both at least past that.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Grisel,’ he said, ‘forgive me, but I can’t—I can’t go on.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Don’t think, don’t think,’ she said, taking his hands, and lifting them to her +bosom. ‘It’s only how the day goes; and it has all, my one dear, happened +scores and scores of times before—mother and child and friend—and lovers that +are all these too, like us. We mustn’t cry out. Perhaps it was all before even +we could speak—this sorrow came. Take all the hope and all the future: and then +may come our chance.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘What’s life to me now. You said the desire would come back; that I should +shake myself free. I could if you would help me. I don’t know what you are or +what your meaning is, only that I love you; care for nothing, wish for nothing +but to see you and think of you. A flat, dull voice keeps saying that I have no +right to be telling you all this. You will know best. I know I am nothing. I +ask nothing. If we love one another, what is there else to say?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Nothing, nothing to say, except only good-bye. What could you tell me that I +have not told myself over and over again? Reason’s gone. Thinking’s gone. Now I +am only sure.’ She smiled shadowily. ‘What peace did <i>he</i> find who +couldn’t, perhaps, like you, face the last good-bye?’ +</p> + +<p> +They stood in utter solitude awhile in the evening gloom. The air was as still +and cold as some grey unfathomable untraversed sea. Above them uncountable +clouds drifted slowly across space. +</p> + +<p> +‘Why do they all keep whispering together?’ he said in a low voice, with +cowering face. ‘Oh if you knew, Grisel, how they have hemmed me in; how they +have come pressing in through the narrow gate I left ajar. Only to mock and +mislead. It’s all dark and unintelligible.’ +</p> + +<p> +He touched her hand, peering out of the shadows that seemed to him to be +gathering between their faces. He drew her closer and touched her lips with his +fingers. Her beauty seemed to his distorted senses to fill earth and sky. This, +then, was the presence, the grave and lovely overshadowing dream whose +surrender made life a torment, and death the near fold of an immortal, starry +veil. She broke from him with a faint cry. And he found himself running and +running, just as he had run that other night, with death instead of life for +inspiration, towards his earthly home. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap22"></a> +CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO</h2> + +<p> +He was utterly wearied, but he walked on for a long while with a dogged +unglancing pertinacity and without looking behind him. Then he rested under the +dew-sodden hedgeside and buried his face in his hands. Once, indeed, he did +turn and grind his way back with hard uplifted face for many minutes, but at +the meeting with an old woman who in the late dusk passed him unheeded on the +road, he stopped again, and after standing awhile looking down upon the dust, +trying to gather up the tangled threads of his thoughts, he once more set off +homewards. +</p> + +<p> +It was clear, starry, and quite dark when he reached the house. The lamp at the +roadside obscurely lit its breadth and height. Lamp-light within, too, was +showing yellow between the Venetian blinds; a cold gas-jet gleamed out of the +basement window. He seemed bereft now of all desire or emotion, simply the +passive witness of things external in a calm which, though he scarcely realised +its cause, was an exquisite solace and relief. His senses were intensely +sharpened with sleeplessness. The faintest sound belled clear and keen on his +ear. The thinnest beam of light besprinkled his eyes with curious brilliance. +</p> + +<p> +As quietly as some nocturnal creature he ascended the steps to the porch, and +leaning between stone pilaster and wall, listened intently for any rumour of +those within. +</p> + +<p> +He heard a clear, rather languid and delicate voice quietly speak on until it +broke into a little peal of laughter, followed, when it fell silent by +Sheila’s—rapid, rich, and low. The first speaker seemed to be standing. +Probably, then, his evening visitors had only just come in, or were preparing +to depart. He inserted his latchkey and gently pushed at the cumbersome door. +It was locked against him. With not the faintest thought of resentment or +surprise, he turned back, stooped over the balustrade and looked down into the +kitchen. Nothing there was visible but a narrow strip of the white table, on +which lay a black cotton glove, and beyond, the glint of a copper pan. What +made all these mute and inanimate things so coldly hostile? +</p> + +<p> +An extreme, almost nauseous distaste filled him at the thought of knocking for +admission, of confronting Ada, possibly even Sheila, in the cold echoing gloom +of the detestable porch; of meeting the first wild, almost metallic, flash of +recognition. He swept softly down again, and paused at the open gate. Once +before the voices of the night had called him: they would not summon him +forever in vain. He raised his eyes again towards the window. Who were these +visitors met together to drum the alien out? He narrowed his lids and smiled up +at the vacuous unfriendly house. Then wheeling, on a sudden impulse he groped +his way down the gravel path that led into the garden. As he had left it, the +long white window was ajar. +</p> + +<p> +With extreme caution he pushed it noiselessly up, and climbed in, and stood +listening again in the black passage on the other side. When he had fully +recovered his breath, and the knocking of his heart was stilled, he trod on +softly, till turning the corner he came in sight of the kitchen door. It was +now narrowly open, just enough, perhaps, to admit a cat; and as he softly +approached, looking steadily in, he could see Ada sitting at the empty table, +beneath the single whistling chandelier, in her black dress and black straw +hat. She was reading apparently; but her back was turned to him and he could +not distinguish her arm beyond the elbow. Then almost in an instant he +discovered, as, drawn up and unstirring he gazed on, that she was not reading, +but had covertly and instantaneously raised her eyes from the print on the +table beneath, and was transfixedly listening too. He turned his eyes away and +waited. When again he peered in she had apparently bent once more over her +magazine, and he stole on. +</p> + +<p> +One by one, with a thin remote exultation in his progress, he mounted the +kitchen stairs, and with each deliberate and groping step the voices above him +became more clearly audible. At last, in the darkness of the hall, but faintly +stirred by the gleam of lamplight from the chink of the dining-room door, he +stood on the threshold of the drawing-room door and could hear with varying +distinctness what those friendly voices were so absorbedly discussing. His ear +seemed as exquisite as some contrivance of science, registering passively the +least sound, the faintest syllable, and like it, in no sense meddling with the +thought that speech conveyed. He simply stood listening, fixed and motionless, +like some uncouth statue in the leafy hollow of a garden, stony, unspeculating. +</p> + +<p> +‘Oh, but you either refuse to believe, Bettie, or you won’t understand that +it’s far worse than that.’ Sheila seemed to be upbraiding, or at least +reasoning with, the last speaker. ‘Ask Mr Danton—he actually <i>saw</i> him.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘“Saw him,”’ repeated a thick, still voice. ‘He stood there, in that very +doorway, Mrs Lovat, and positively railed at me. He stood there and streamed +out all the names he could lay his tongue to. I wasn’t—unfriendly to the poor +beggar. When Bethany let me into it I thought it was simply—I did indeed, Mrs +Lawford—a monstrous exaggeration. Flatly, I didn’t believe it; shall I say +that? But when I stood face to face with him, I could have taken my oath that +that was no more poor old Arthur Lawford than—well, I won’t repeat what +particular word occurred to me. But there,’ the corpulent shrug was almost +audible, ‘we all know what old Bethany is. A sterling old chap, mind you, so +far as mere character is concerned; the right man in the right place; but as +gullible and as soft-hearted as a tom-tit. I’ve said all this before, I know, +Mrs Lawford, and been properly snubbed for my pains. But if I had been Bethany +I’d have sifted the whole story at the beginning, the moment he put his foot +into the house. Look at that Tichborne fellow—went for months and months, just +picking up one day what he floored old Hawkins—wasn’t it?—with the next. But of +course,’ he added gloomily, ‘now that’s all too late. He’s moaned himself into +a tolerably tight corner. I’d just like to see, though, a British jury +comparing this claimant with his photograph, ‘pon my word I would. Where would +he be then, do you think?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘But my dear Mr Danton,’ went on the clear, languid voice Lawford had heard +break so light-heartedly into laughter, ‘you don’t mean to tell me that a woman +doesn’t know her own husband when she sees him—or, for the matter of that, when +she doesn’t see him? If Tom came home from a ramble as handsome as Apollo +to-morrow, I’d recognise him at the very first blush—literally! He’d go +nuzzling off to get his slippers, or complain that the lamps had been smoking, +or hunt the house down for last week’s paper. Oh, besides, Tom’s Tom—and +there’s an end of it.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘That’s precisely what I think, Mrs Lovat; one is saturated with one’s +personality, as it were.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘You see, that’s just it! That’s just exactly every woman’s husband all over; +he is saturated with his personality. Bravo, Mr Craik!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Good Lord,’ said Danton softly. ‘I don’t deny it!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘But that,’ broke in Sheila crisply—‘that’s just precisely what I asked you all +to come in for. It’s because I know now, apart altogether from the mere +evidence, that—that he is Arthur. Mind, I don’t say I ever really doubted. I +was only so utterly shocked, I suppose. I positively put posers to him; but his +memory was perfect in spite of the shock which would have killed a—a more +sensitive nature.’ She had risen, it seemed, and was moving with all her +splendid impressiveness of silk and presence across the general line of vision. +But the hall was dark and still; her eyes were dimmed with light. Lawford could +survey her there unmoved. +</p> + +<p> +‘Are you there, Ada?’ she called discreetly. +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes, ma’am,’ answered the faint voice from below. +</p> + +<p> +‘You have not heard anything—no knock?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘No, ma’am, no knock.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘The door is open if you should call.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes, ma’am.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘The girl’s scared out of her wits,’ said Sheila returning to her audience. +‘I’ve told you all that miserable Ferguson story—a piece of calm, callous +presence of mind I should never have dreamed my husband capable of. And the +curious thing is—at least, it is no longer curious in the light of the ghastly +facts I am only waiting for Mr Bethany to tell you—from the very first she +instinctively detested the very mention of his name.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I believe, you know,’ said Mr Craik with some decision, ‘that servants must +have the same wonderful instinct as dogs and children; they are natural, +<i>intuitive</i> judges of character.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes,’ said Sheila gravely, ‘and it’s only through that that I got to hear of +the—the mysterious friend in the little pony-carriage. Ada’s magnificently +loyal—I will say that.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I don’t want to suggest anything, Mrs Lawford,’ began Mr Craik rather +hurriedly, ‘but wouldn’t it perhaps be wiser not to wait for Mr Bethany? It is +not at all unusual for him to be kept a considerable time in the vestry after +service, and to-day is the Feast of St Michael’s and all Angels, you know. +Mightn’t your husband be—er—coming back, don’t you think?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Craik’s right, Mrs Lawford; it’s not a bit of good waiting. Bethany would +stick there till midnight if any old woman’s spiritual state could keep her +going so long. Here we all are, and at any moment we may be interrupted. Mind +you, I promise nothing—only that there shall be no scene. But here I am, and if +he does come knocking and ringing and lunging out in the disgusting manner +he—well, all I ask is permission to speak for <i>you</i>. ‘Pon my soul, to +think what you must have gone through! It isn’t the place for ladies just +now—honestly it ain’t.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Besides, supposing the romantic lady of the pony-carriage has friends? Are +<i>you</i> a pugilist, Mr Craik?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I hope I could give some little account of myself, Mrs Lovat; but you need +have no anxiety about that.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘There, Mr Danton. So as there is not the least cause for anxiety even if poor +Arthur <i>should</i> return to his earthly home, may we share your dreadful +story at once, Sheila; and then, perhaps, hear Mr Bethany’s exposition of it +when he <i>does</i> arrive? We are amply guarded.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Honestly, you know, you are a bit of a sceptic, Mrs Lovat,’ pleaded Danton +playfully. ‘I’ve <i>seen</i> him.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘And seeing is disbelieving, I suppose. Now then, Sheila.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I don’t think there’s the least chance of Arthur returning to-night,’ said +Sheila solemnly. ‘I am perfectly well aware it’s best to be as cheerful as one +can—and as resolved; but I think, Bettie, when even you know the whole horrible +secret, you won’t think Mr Danton was—was horrified for nothing. The ghastly, +the awful truth is that my husband—there is no other word for it—is—possessed!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘“Possessed,” Sheila! What in the name of all the creeps is that?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Well, I dare say Mr Craik will explain it much better than I can. By a devil, +dear.’ The voice was perfectly poised and restrained, and Mr Craik did not see +fit for the moment to embellish the definition. +</p> + +<p> +Lawford, with an almost wooden immobility, listened on. +</p> + +<p> +‘But <i>the</i> devil, or <i>a</i> devil? Isn’t there a distinction?’ inquired +Mrs Lovat. +</p> + +<p> +‘It’s in the Bible, Bettie, over and over again. It was quite a common thing in +the Middle Ages; I think I’m right in saying that, am I not, Mr Craik?’ Mr +Craik must have solemnly nodded or abundantly looked his unwilling affirmation. +‘And what <i>has</i> been,’ continued Sheila temperately, ‘I suppose may be +again.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘When the fellow began raving at me the other night,’ began Danton huskily, as +if out of an unfathomable pit of reflection, ‘among other things he said that I +haven’t any wish to remember was that I was a sceptic. And Bethany said +<i>ditto</i> to it. I don’t mind being called a sceptic: why, I said myself Mrs +Lovat was a sceptic just now! But when it comes to “devils,” Mrs Lawford—I may +be convinced about the other, but “devils”! Well, I’ve been in the City nearly +twenty-five years, and it’s my impression human nature can raise all the devils +<i>we</i> shall ever need. And another thing,’ he added, as if inspired, and +with an immensely intelligent blink, ‘is it just precisely that word in the +Revised Version—eh, Craik?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I’ll certainly look it up, Danton. But I take it that Mrs Lawford is not so +much insisting on the word, as on the—the manifestation. And I’m bound to +confess that the Society for Psychical Research, which has among its members +quite eminent and entirely trustworthy men of <i>science</i>—I am bound to +admit they have some very curious stories to tell. The old idea was, you know, +that there are seventy-two princely devils, and as many as seven +million—er—commoners. It may very well sound quaint to <i>our</i> ears, Mrs +Lovat; but there it is. But whether that has any bearing on—on what you were +saying, Danton, I can’t say. Perhaps Mrs Lawford will throw a little more light +on the subject when she tells us on what precise facts her—her distressing +theory is based.’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford had soundlessly stolen a pace or two nearer, and by stooping forward a +little he could, each in turn, scrutinise the little intent company sitting +over his story around the lamp at the further end of the table; squatting like +little children with their twigs and pins, fishing for wonders on the brink of +the unknown. +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes,’ Mrs Lovat was saying, ‘I quite agree, Mr Craik. Seventy-two princes, and +no princesses. Oh, these masculine prejudices! But do throw a little more +<i>modern</i> light on the subject, Sheila.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I mean this,’ said Sheila firmly. ‘When I went in for the last time to say +good-bye—and of course it was at his own wish that I did leave him; and +precisely <i>why</i> he wished it is now unhappily only too apparent—I had +brought him some money from the bank—fifty pounds, I think; yes, fifty pounds. +And quite by the merest chance I glanced down, in passing, at a book he had +apparently been reading, a book which he seemed very anxious to conceal with +his hand. Arthur is not a great reader, though I believe he studied a little +before we were married, and—well, I detest anything like subterfuge, and I said +it out without thinking, “Why, you’re reading French, Arthur!” He turned +deathly white but made no answer.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘And can’t you even confide to us the title, Sheila?’ sighed Mrs Lovat +reproachfully. +</p> + +<p> +‘Wait a minute,’ said Sheila; ‘you shall make as much fun of the thing as you +like, Bettie, when I’ve finished. I don’t know why, but that peculiar, stealthy +look haunted me. “Why French?” I kept asking myself. “Why French?” Arthur +hasn’t opened a French book for years. He doesn’t even approve of the <i +lang="fr">entente</i>. His argument was that we ought to be friends with the +Germans because they are more hostile. Never mind. When Ada came back the next +evening and said he was out, I came the following morning—by myself—and +knocked. No one answered, and I let myself in. His bed had not been slept in. +There were candles and matches all over the house—one even burnt nearly to the +stick on the floor in the corner of the drawing-room. I suppose it was foolish, +but I was alone, and just that, somehow, horrified me. It seemed to point to +such a peculiar state of mind. I hesitated; what was the use of looking +further? Yet something seemed to say to me—and it was surely providential—“Go +downstairs!” And there in the breakfast-room the first thing I saw on the table +was this book—a dingy, ragged, bleared, patched-up, oh, a horrible, a loathsome +little book (and I have read bits too here and there); and beside it was my own +little school dictionary, my own child’s——’ She looked up sharply. ‘What was +that? Did anybody call?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Nobody <i>I</i> heard,’ said Danton, staring stonily round. +</p> + +<p> +‘It may have been the passing of the wind,’ suggested Mr Craik, after a pause. +</p> + +<p> +‘Peep between the blinds, Mr Craik; it may be poor Mr Bethany confronting +Pneumonia in the porch.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘There’s no one there, Mrs Lovat,’ said the curate, returning softly from his +errand. ‘Please continue your—your narrative, Mrs Lawford.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘We are panting for the “devil,” my dear.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Well, I sat down and, very much against my inclination, turned over the pages. +It was full of the most revolting confessions and trials, so far as I could +see. In fact, I think the book was merely an amateur collection of—of horrors. +And the faces, the portraits! Well, then, can you imagine my feelings when +towards the end of the book about thirty pages from the end, I came upon +this—gloating up at me from the table in my house before my very eyes?’ +</p> + +<p> +She cast a rapid glance over her shoulder, and gathering up her silk skirt, +drew out, from the pocket beneath, the few crumpled pages, and passed them +without a word to Danton. Lawford kept him plainly in view, as, lowering his +great face, he slowly stooped, and holding the loose leaves with both fat hands +between his knees, stared into the portrait. Then he truculently lifted his +cropped head. +</p> + +<p> +‘What did I say?’ he said. ‘What did I <i>say?</i> What did I tell old Bethany +in this very room? What d’ye think of that, Mrs Lovat, for a portrait of Arthur +Lawford? What d’ye make of that, Craik—eh? Devil—eh?’ +</p> + +<p> +Mrs Lovat glanced with arched eyebrows, and with her finger-tips handed the +sheets on to her neighbour, who gazed with a settled and mournful frown and +returned them to Sheila. +</p> + +<p> +She took the pages, folded them and replaced them carefully in her pocket. She +swept her hands over her skirts, and turned to Danton. +</p> + +<p> +‘You agree,’ she inquired softly, ‘it’s like?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Like! It’s the livin’ livid image. The livin’ image,’ he repeated, stretching +out his arm, ‘as he stood there that very night.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘What will you say, then,’ said Sheila, quietly, ‘What will you say if I tell +you that that man, Nicholas de Sabathier, has been in his grave for over a +hundred years?’ +</p> + +<p> +Danton’s little eyes seemed, if anything, to draw back even further into his +head. ‘I’d say, Mrs Lawford, if you’ll excuse the word, that it might be a damn +horrible coincidence—I’d go farther, an almost incredible coincidence. But if +you want the sober truth, I’d say it was nothing more than a crafty, clever, +abominable piece of trickery. That’s what I’d say. Oh, you don’t know, Mrs +Lovat. When a scamp’s a scamp, he’ll stop at nothing. <i>I</i> could tell you +some tales.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Ah, but that’s not all,’ said Sheila, eyeing them steadfastly one by one. ‘We +all of us know that my husband’s story was that he had gone down to +Widderstone—into the churchyard, for his convalescent ramble; that story’s +true. We all know that he said he had had a fit, a heart attack, and that a +kind of—of stupor had come over him. I believe on my honour that’s true too. +But no one knows but he himself and Mr Bethany and I, that it was a wretched +broken grave, quite at the bottom of the hill, that he chose for his resting +place, nor—and I can’t get the scene out of my head—nor that the name on that +one solitary tombstone down there was—was...this!’ +</p> + +<p> +Danton rolled his eyes. ‘I don’t begin to follow,’ he said stubbornly. +</p> + +<p> +‘You don’t mean,’ said Mr Craik, who had not removed his gaze from Sheila’s +face, ‘I am not to take it that you mean, Mrs Lawford, the—the other?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes,’ said Sheila, ‘<i>his</i>’—she patted her skirts—‘Sabathier’s.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘You mean,’ said Mrs Lovat crisply, ‘that the man in the grave is the man in +the book, and that the man in the book is—is poor Arthur’s changed face?’ +</p> + +<p> +Sheila nodded. +</p> + +<p> +Danton rose cumbrously from his chair, looking beadily down on his three +friends. +</p> + +<p> +‘Oh, but you know, it isn’t—it isn’t right,’ he began. ‘Lord! I can see him +now. Glassy—yes, that’s the very word I said—glassy. It won’t do, Mrs Lawford; +on my solemn honour, it won’t do. I don’t deny it, call it what you like; yes, +devils, if you like. But what I say as a practical man is that it’s just +rank—that’s what it is! Bethany’s had too much rope. The time’s gone by for +sentiment and all that foolery. Mercy’s all very well, but after all it’s +justice that clinches the bargain. There’s only one way: we must catch him; we +must lay the poor wretch by the heels before it’s too late. No publicity, God +bless me, no. We’d have all the rags in London on us. They’d pillory us nine +days on end. We’d never live it down. No, we must just hush it up—a home or +something; an asylum. For my part,’ he turned like a huge toad, his chin low in +his collar—‘and I’d say the same if it was my own brother, and, after all, he +is your husband, Mrs Lawford—I’d sooner he was in his grave. It takes two to +play at that game, that’s what I say. To lay himself open! I can’t stand +it—honestly, I can’t stand it. And yet,’ he jerked his chin over the peak of +his collar towards the ladies, ‘and yet you say he’s being fetched; comes +creeping home, and is fetched at dark by a—a lady in a pony-carriage. God bless +me! It’s rank. What,’ he broke out violently again, ‘what was he doing there in +a cemetery after dark? Do you think that beastly Frenchman would have played +such a trick on Craik here? Would he have tried his little game on me? Deviltry +be it, if you prefer the word, and all deference to you, Mrs Lawford. But I +know this—a couple of hundred years ago they would have burnt a man at the +stake for less than a tenth of this. Ask Craik here. I don’t know how, and I +don’t know when: his mother, I’ve always heard say, was a little eccentric; but +the truth is he’s managed by some unholy legerdemain to get the thing at his +finger’s ends; that’s what it is. Think of that unspeakable book. Left open on +the table! Look at his Ferguson game. It’s our solemn duty to keep him for good +and all out of mischief. It reflects all round. There’s no getting out of it; +we’re all in it. And tar sticks. And then there’s poor little Alice to +consider, and—and you yourself, Mrs. Lawford: I wouldn’t give the fellow—friend +though he was, in a way—it isn’t safe to give him five minutes’ freedom. We’ve +simply got to save you from yourself, Mrs Lawford; that’s what it is—and from +old-fashioned sentiment. And I only wish Bethany was here now to dispute it!’ +</p> + +<p> +He stirred himself down, as it were, into his clothes, and stood in the middle +of the hearthrug, gently oscillating, with his hands behind his back. But at +some faint rumour out of the silent house his posture suddenly stiffened, and +he lifted a little, with heavy, steady lids, his head. +</p> + +<p> +‘What is the matter, Danton?’ said Mr Craik in a small voice; ‘why are you +listening?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I wasn’t listening,’ said Danton stoutly, ‘I was thinking.’ +</p> + +<p> +At the same moment, at the creak of a footstep on the kitchen stairs, Lawford +also had drawn soundlessly back into the darkness of the empty drawing-room. +</p> + +<p> +‘While Mr Danton is “thinking,” Sheila,’ Mrs Lovat was softly interposing, ‘do +please listen a moment to <i>me</i>. Do you mean really that that Frenchman—the +one you’ve pocketed—is the poor creature in the grave?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes, Mrs Lawford,’ said Mr Craik, putting out his face a little, ‘are we to +take it that you mean that?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘It’s the same date, dear, the same name even to the spelling; what possibly +else can I think?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘And that the poor creature in the grave actually climbed up out of the +darkness and—well, what?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I know no more than you do <i>now</i>, Bettie. But the two faces—you must +remember you haven’t seen my husband <i>since</i>.’ You must remember you +haven’t heard the peculiar—the most peculiar things he—Arthur himself—has said +to me. Things such as a wife... And not in jest, Bettie; I assure you....’ +</p> + +<p> +‘And Mr Bethany?’ interpolated Mr Craik modestly, feeling his way. +</p> + +<p> +‘Pah, Bethany, Craik! He’d back Old Nick himself if he came with a good tale. +We’ve got to act; we’ve got to settle his hash before he does any mischief.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Well,’ began Mrs Lovat, smiling a little remorsefully beneath the arch of her +raised eyebrows, ‘I sincerely hope you’ll all forgive me; but I really am, +heart and soul, with Old Nick, as Mr Danton seems on intimate terms enough to +call him. Dead, he is really immensely alluring; and alive, I think, +awfully—just awfully pitiful and—and pathetic. But if I know anything of Arthur +he won’t be beaten by a Frenchman. As for just the portrait, I think, do you +know, I almost prefer dark men’—she glanced up at the face immediately in front +of the clock—‘at least,’ she added softly, ‘when they are not looking very +vindictive. I suppose people are fairly often possessed, Mr Craik? <i>How</i> +many “deadly sins” are there?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘As a matter of fact, Mrs Lovat, there are seven. But I think in this case Mrs +Lawford intends to suggest not so much that—that her husband is in that +condition; habitual sin, you know—grave enough, of course, I own—but that he is +actually being compelled, even to the extent of a more or less complete change +of physiognomy, to follow the biddings of some atrocious spiritual influence. +It is no breach of confidence to say that I have myself been present at a +death-bed where the struggle against what I may call the end was perfectly +awful to witness. I don’t profess to follow all the ramifications of the +affair, but though possibly Mr Danton may seem a little harsh, such harshness, +if I may venture to intercede, is not necessarily “vindictive.” And—and +personal security is a consideration.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘If you only knew the awful fear, the awful uncertainty I have been in, Bettie! +Oh, it is worse, infinitely worse, than you can possibly imagine. I have myself +heard the Voice speak out of him—a high, hard, nasal voice. I’ve seen what Mr +Danton calls the “glassiness” come into his face, and an expression so wild and +so appallingly depraved, as it were, that I have had to hurry downstairs to +hide myself from the thought. I’m willing to sacrifice everything for my own +husband and for Alice; but can it be expected of me to go on harbouring....’ +Lawford listened on in vain for a moment; poor Sheila, it seemed, had all but +broken down. +</p> + +<p> +‘Look here, Mrs Lawford,’ began Danton huskily, ‘you really mustn’t give way; +you really mustn’t. It’s awful, unspeakably awful, I admit. But here we are; +friends, in the midst of friends. And there’s absolutely nothing—What’s that? +Eh? Who is it?... Oh, the maid!’ +</p> + +<p> +Ada stood in the doorway looking in. ‘All I’ve come to ask, ma’am,’ she said in +a low voice, ‘is, am I to stay downstairs any longer? And are you aware there’s +somebody in the house?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘What’s that? What’s that you’re saying?’ broke out the husky voice again. +‘Control yourself! Speak gently! What’s that?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Begging your pardon, sir, I’m perfectly under control. And all I say is that I +can’t stay any longer alone downstairs there. There’s somebody in the house.’ +</p> + +<p> +A concentrated hush seemed to have fallen on the little assembly. +</p> + +<p> +‘“Somebody”—but who?’ said Sheila out of the silence. ‘You come up here, Ada, +with these idle fancies. Who’s in the house? There has been no knock—no +footstep.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘No knock, no footstep, ma’am, that I’ve heard. It’s Dr Ferguson, ma’am. He was +here that first night; and he’s been here ever since. He was here when I came +on Tuesday; and he was here last night. And he’s here now. I can’t be deceived +by my own feelings. It’s not right, it’s not out-spoken to keep me in the dark +like this. And if you have no objection, I would like to go home.’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford in his utter weariness had nearly closed the door and now sat bent up +on a chair, wondering vaguely when this poor play was coming to an end, longing +with an intensity almost beyond endurance for the keen night air, the open sky. +But still his ears drank in every tiniest sound or stir. He heard Danton’s +lowered voice muttering his arguments. He heard Ada quietly sniffing in the +darkness of the hall. And this was his world! This was his life’s panorama, +creaking on at every jolt. This was the ‘must’ Grisel had sent him back +to—these poor fools packed together in a panic at an old stale tale! Well, they +would all come out presently, and cluster; and the crested, cackling fellow +would lead them safely away out of the haunted farmyard. +</p> + +<p> +He started out of his reverie at Danton’s voice close at hand. +</p> + +<p> +‘Look here, my good girl, we haven’t the least intention of keeping you in the +dark. If you want to leave your mistress like this in the midst of her +anxieties she says you can go and welcome. But it’s not a bit of good in the +world coming up with these cock-and-bull stories. The truth is your master’s +mad, that’s the sober truth of it—hopelessly insane, you understand; and we’ve +got to find him. But nothing’s to be said, d’ye see? It’s got to be done +without fuss or scandal. But if there’s any witness wanted, or anything of that +kind, why, here you are; and,’ he dropped his voice to an almost inaudible +hoot, ‘and well worth your while! You did see him, eh? Step into the trap, and +all that?’ +</p> + +<p> +Ada stood silent a moment. ‘I don’t know, sir,’ she began quietly, ‘by what +right you speak to me about what you call my cock-and-bull stories. If the +master is mad, all I can say to <i>anybody</i> is I’m very sorry to hear it. I +came to my mistress, sir, if you please; and I prefer to take my orders from +one who has a right to give them. Did I understand you to say, ma’am, that you +wouldn’t want me any more this evening?’ +</p> + +<p> +Sheila had swept solemnly to the door. ‘Mr Danton meant all that he said quite +kindly, Ada. I can perfectly understand your feelings—perfectly. And I’m very +much obliged to you for all your kindness to me in very trying circumstances. +We are all agreed—we are forced to the terrible conclusion which—which Mr +Danton has just—expressed. And I know I can rely on your discretion. Don’t stay +on a moment if you really are afraid. But when you say “some one” Ada, do you +mean—some one like you or me; or do you mean—the other?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I’ve been sitting in the kitchen, ma’am, unable to move. I’m watched +everywhere. The other evening I went into the drawing-room—I was alone in the +house—and... I can’t describe it. It wasn’t dark; and yet it was all still and +black, like the ruins after a fire. I don’t mean I saw it, only that it was +like a scene. And then the watching—I am quite aware to some it may sound all +fancy. But I’m not superstitious, never was. I only mean—that I can’t sit alone +here. I daren’t. Else, I’m quite myself. So if so be you don’t want me any +more; if I can’t be of any further use to you or to—to Mr. Lawford, I’d prefer +to go home.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Very well, Ada; thank you. You can go out this way.’ +</p> + +<p> +The door was unchained and unbolted, and ‘Good-night’ said. And Sheila swept +back in sombre pomp to her absorbed friends. +</p> + +<p> +‘She’s quite a good creature at heart,’ she explained frankly, as if to +disclaim any finesse, ‘and almost quixotically loyal. But what really did she +mean, do you think? She is so obstinate. That maddening “some one”! How they do +repeat themselves. It can’t be my husband; not Dr Ferguson, I mean. You don’t +suppose—oh surely, not “some one” else!’ Again the dark silence of the house +seemed to drift in on the little company. +</p> + +<p> +Mr Craik cleared his throat. ‘I failed to catch quite all that the maid said,’ +he murmured apologetically; ‘but I certainly did gather it was to some kind +of—of emanation she was referring. And the “ruin,” you know. I’m not a mystic; +and yet do you know, that somehow seemed to me almost offensively suggestive +of—of demonic influence. You don’t suppose, Mrs Lawford—and of course I +wouldn’t for a moment venture on such a conjecture unsupported—but even if this +restless spirit (let us call it) did succeed in making a footing, it might +possibly be rather in the nature of a lodging than a permanent residence. +Moreover we are, I think, bound to remember that probably in all spheres of +existence like attracts like; even the Gadarene episode seems to suggest a +possible <i>multiplication!</i>’ he peered largely. ‘You don’t suppose, Mrs +Lawford...?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I think Mr Craik doesn’t quite relish having to break the news, Sheila dear,’ +explained Mrs Lovat soothingly, ‘that perhaps Sabathier’s <i>out</i>. Which +really is quite a heavenly suggestion, for in that case your husband would be +in, wouldn’t he? Just our old stolid Arthur again, you know. And next Mr Craik +is suggesting, and it certainly does seem rather fascinating, that poor Ada’s +got mixed up with the Frenchman’s friends, or perhaps, even, with one of the +seventy-two Princes Royal. I know women can’t, or mustn’t reason, Mr Danton, +but you do, I hope, just catch the drift?’ +</p> + +<p> +Danton started. ‘I wasn’t really listening to the girl,’ he explained +nonchalantly, shrugging his black shoulders and pursing up his eyes. +‘Personally, Mrs Lovat, I’d pack the baggage off to-night, box and all. But +it’s not my business.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘You mustn’t be depressed—must he, Mr Craik? After all, my dear man, the +business, as you call it, is not exactly entailed. But really, Sheila, I think +it must be getting very late. Mr Bethany won’t come now. And the dear old thing +ought certainly to have his say before we go any further; <i>oughtn’t</i> he, +Mr Danton? So what’s the use of worriting poor Ada’s ghost any longer. And as +for poor Arthur—I haven’t the faintest desire in the world to hear the little +cart drive up, simply in case it should be to leave your unfortunate husband +behind it, Sheila. What it must be to be alone all night in this house with a +dead and buried Frenchman’s face—well, I shudder, dear!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘And yet, Mrs Lovat,’ said Mr Craik, with some little show of returning +bravado, ‘as we make our bed, you know.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘But in this case, you see,’ she replied reflectively, ‘if all accounts are +true, Mr Craik, it’s manifestly the wicked Frenchman who has made the bed, and +Sheila who refu—— But look; Mr Danton is fretting to get home.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘If you’ll all go to the door,’ said Danton, seizing a fleeting opportunity to +raise his eyebrows more expressively even than if he had again shrugged his +shoulders at Sheila, ‘I’ll put out the light.’ +</p> + +<p> +The night air flowed into the dark house as Danton hastily groped his way out +of the dining-room. +</p> + +<p> +‘There’s only one thing,’ said Sheila slowly. ‘When I last saw my husband, you +know, he was, I think, the least bit better. He was always stubbornly convinced +it would all come right in time. That’s why, I think, he’s been spending +his—his evenings away from home. But supposing it did?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘For my part,’ said Mrs Lovat, breathing the faint wind that was rising out of +the west, ‘I’d sigh; I’d rub my eyes; I’d thank God for such an exciting dream; +and I’d turn comfortably over and go to sleep again. I’m all for +Arthur—absolutely—back against the wall.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘For my part,’ said Danton, looming in the dusk, ‘friend or no friend, I’d cut +the—I’d cut him dead. But don’t fret, Mrs Lawford, devil or no devil, he’s gone +for good.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘And for my part—’ began Mr Craik; but the door at that moment slammed. +</p> + +<p> +Voices, however, broke out almost immediately in the porch. And after a hurried +consultation, Lawford in his stagnant retreat heard the door softly reopen, and +the striking of a match. And Mr Craik, followed closely by Danton’s great body, +stole circumspectly across his dim chink, and the first adventurer went +stumbling down the kitchen staircase. +</p> + +<p> +‘I suppose,’ muttered Lawford, turning his head in the darkness, ‘they have +come back to put out the kitchen gas.’ +</p> + +<p> +Danton began a busy tuneless whistle between his teeth. +</p> + +<p> +‘Coming, Craik?’ he called thickly, after a long pause. +</p> + +<p> +Apparently no answer had been returned to his inquiry: he waited a little +longer, with legs apart, and eyeballs enveloped in brooding darkness. ‘I’ll +just go and tell the ladies you’re coming,’ he suddenly bawled down the hollow. +‘Do you hear, Craik? They’re alone, you know.’ And with that he resolutely +wheeled and rapidly made his way down the steps into the garden. Some few +moments afterwards Mr Craik shook himself free of the basement, hastened at a +spirited trot to rejoin his companions, and in his absence of mind omitted to +shut the front door. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap23"></a> +CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE</h2> + +<p> +Lawford sat on in the darkness, and now one sentence and now another of their +talk would repeat itself in his memory, in much the same way as one listlessly +turns over an antiquated diary, to read here and there a flattened and almost +meaningless sentiment. Sometimes a footstep passed echoing along the path under +the trees, then his thoughts would leave him, and he would listen and listen +till it had died quite out. It was all so very far away. And they too—these +talkers—so very far away; as remote and yet as clear as the characters in a +play when they have made their final bow, and have left the curtained stage, +and one is standing uncompanioned and nearly the last of the spectators, and +the lights that have summoned back reality again are being extinguished. It was +only by painful effort of mind that he kept recalling himself to himself—why he +was here; what it all meant; that this was indeed actuality. +</p> + +<p> +Yet, after all, this by now was his customary loneliness: there was little else +he desired for the present than the hospitality of the dark. He glanced around +him in the clear, black, stirless air. Here and there, it seemed, a humped or +spindled form held against all comers its passive place. Here and there a tiny +faintness of light played. Night after night these chairs and tables kept their +blank vigil. Why, he thought, pleased as an overtired child with the fancy, in +a sense they were always alone, shut up in a kind of senselessness—just like us +all. But what—what, he had suddenly risen from his chair to ask himself—what on +earth are they alone with? No precise answer had been forthcoming to that +question. But as in turning in the doorway, he looked out into the night, +flashing here and there in dark spaces of the sky above the withering apple +leaves—the long dark wall and quiet untrodden road—with the tumultuous beating +of the stars—one thing at least he was conscious of having learned in these +last few days: he knew what kind of a place he was alone <i>in</i>. +</p> + +<p> +It seemed to weave a spell over him, to call up a nostalgia he had lost all +remembrance of since childhood. And that queer homesickness, at any rate, was +all Sabathier’s doing, he thought, smiling in his rather careworn fashion. +Sabathier! It was this mystery, bereft now of all fear, and this beauty +together, that made life the endless, changing and yet changeless, thing it +was. And yet mystery and loveliness alike were only really appreciable with +one’s legs, as it were, dangling down over into the grave. +</p> + +<p> +Just with one’s lantern lit, on the edge of the whispering unknown, and a +reiterated going back out of the solitude into the light and warmth, to the +voices and glancing of eyes, to say good-bye:—that after all was this life on +earth for those who watched as well as acted. What if one’s earthly home were +empty?—still the restless fretted traveller must tarry; ‘for the horrible worst +of it is, my friend,’ he said, as if to some silent companion listening behind +him, ‘the worst of it is, <i>your</i> way was just simply, solely suicide.’ +What was it Herbert had called it? Yes, a cul-de-sac—black, lofty, immensely +still and old and picturesque, but none the less merely a contemptible +cul-de-sac; no abiding place, scarcely even sufficing with its flagstones for a +groan from the fugitive and deluded refugee. There was no peace for the wicked. +The question of course then came in—Was there any peace anywhere, for anybody? +</p> + +<p> +He smiled at a sudden odd remembrance of a quiet, sardonic old aunt whom he +used to stay with as a child. ‘Children should be seen and not heard,’ she +would say, peering at him over his favourite pudding. +</p> + +<p> +His eyes rested vacantly on the darkling street. He fell again into reverie, +gigantically brooded over by shapes only imagination dimly conceived of: the +remote alleys of his mind astir with a shadowy and ceaseless traffic which it +wasn’t at least <i>this</i> life’s business to hearken after, or regard. And as +he stood there in a mysteriously thronging peaceful solitude such as he had +never known before, faintly out of the silence broke the sound of approaching +hoofs. His heart seemed to gather itself close; a momentary blindness veiled +his eyes, so wildly had his blood surged up into cheek and brain. He remained, +caught up, with head slightly inclined, listening, as, with an interminable +tardiness, measureless anguished hope died down into nothing in his mind. +</p> + +<p> +Cold and heavy, his heart began to beat again, as if to catch up those laggard +moments. He turned with an infinite revulsion of feeling to look out on the +lamps of the old fly that had drawn up at his gate. +</p> + +<p> +He watched incuriously a little old lady rather arduously alight, pause, and +look up at his darkened windows, and after a momentary hesitation, and a word +over her shoulder to the cabman, stoop and fumble at the iron latch. He watched +her with a kind of wondering aversion, still scarcely tinged with curiosity. +She had succeeded in lifting the latch and in pushing her way through, and was +even now steadily advancing towards him along the tiled path. And a minute +after he recognised with the strangest reactions the quiet old figure that had +shared a sunset with him ages and ages ago—his mother’s old schoolfellow, Miss +Sinnet. +</p> + +<p> +He was already ransacking the still faintly-perfumed dining-room for matches, +and had just succeeded in relighting the still-warm lamp, when he heard her +quiet step in the porch, even felt her peering in, in the gloom, with all her +years’ trickling customariness behind her, a little dubious of knocking on a +wide-open door. +</p> + +<p> +But the lamp lit Lawford went out again and welcomed his visitor. ‘I am alone,’ +he was explaining gravely, ‘my wife’s away and the whole house topsy-turvy. How +very, very kind of you!’ +</p> + +<p> +The old lady was breathing a little heavily after her ascent of the steep +steps, and seemed not to have noticed his outstretched hand. None the less she +followed him in, and when she was well advanced into the lighted room, she +sighed deeply, raised her veil over the front of her bonnet, and leisurely took +out her spectacles. +</p> + +<p> +‘I suppose,’ she was explaining in a little quiet voice, ‘you <i>are</i> Mr +Arthur Lawford, but as I did not catch sight of a light in any of the windows I +began to fear that the cabman might have set me down at the wrong house.’ +</p> + +<p> +She raised her head, and first through, and then over her spectacles she +deliberately and steadfastly regarded him. +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes,’ she said to herself, and turned, not as it seemed entirely with +satisfaction, to look for a chair. He wheeled the most comfortable up to the +table. +</p> + +<p> +‘I have been visiting my old friend Miss Tucker—Rev W. Tucker’s daughter—she, I +knew, could give me your address; and sure enough she did. Your road, d’ye see, +was on my way home. And I determined, in spite of the hour, just to inquire. +You must understand, Mr Lawford, there was something that I rather particularly +wanted to say to you. But there!—you’re looking sadly, sadly ill; and,’ she +glanced round a little inquisitively, ‘I think my story had better wait for a +more convenient occasion.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Not at all, Miss Sinnet; please not,’ Lawford assured her, ‘really. I have +been ill, but I’m now practically quite myself again. My wife and daughter have +gone away for a few days; and I follow to-morrow, so if you’ll forgive such a +very poor welcome, it may be my—my only chance. Do please let me hear.’ +</p> + +<p> +The old lady leant back in her chair, placed her hands on its arms and softly +panted, while out of the rather broad serenity of her face she sat blinking up +at her companion as if after a long talk, instead of at the beginning of one. +‘No,’ she repeated reflectively, ‘I don’t like your looks at all; yet here we +are, enjoying beautiful autumn weather, Mr Lawford, why not make use of it?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Oh yes,’ said Lawford, ‘I do. I have been making tremendous use of it.’ +</p> + +<p> +Her eyelid flickered at his candid glance. ‘And does your business permit of +much walking?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Well, I’ve been malingering these last few days idling at home; but I am +usually more or less my own man, Miss Sinnet. I walk a little.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘H’m, but not much in my direction, Mr Lawford?’ she quizzed him. +</p> + +<p> +‘All horrible indolence, Miss Sinnet. But I often—often think of you; and +especially just lately.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Well, now,’ she wriggled round her head to get a better view of him rather +stiffly seated on his chair, ‘that’s very peculiar; because I too have been +thinking lately a great deal of you. And yet—I fancy I shall succeed in +mystifying you presently—not precisely of you, but of somebody else!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘You do mystify me—“somebody else”!’ he replied gallantly. ‘And that is the +story, I suppose?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘That’s the story,’ repeated Miss Sinnet with some little triumph. ‘Now, let me +see; it was on Saturday last—yes, Saturday evening; a wonderful sunset; Bewley +Heath.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Oh yes; my daughter’s favourite walk.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘And your daughter’s age now?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘She’s nearly sixteen; Alice, you know.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Ah, yes, Alice; to be sure. It <i>is</i> a beautiful walk, and if fine, I +generally take mine there too. It’s near; there’s shade; it’s very little +frequented; and I can wander and muse undisturbed. And that I think is pretty +well all that an old woman like me is fit for, Mr Lawford. “Nearly sixteen!” Is +it possible? Dear, dear me? But let me get on. On my way home from the Heath, +you may be aware, before one reaches the road again, there’s a somewhat steep +ascent. I haven’t the strength I had, and whether I’m fatigued or not, I have +always made it a rule to rest awhile on a most convenient little seat at the +summit, admire the view—what I can see of it—and then make my way quietly, +quietly home. On Saturday, however, and it most rarely occurs—once, I remember, +when a very civil nursemaid was sitting with two charmingly behaved little +children in the sunshine, and I heard they were my old friend Major Loder’s +<i>son’s</i> children—on Saturday, as I was saying, my own particular little +haunt was already occupied.’ She glanced back at him from out of her thoughts, +as it were. ‘By a gentleman. I say, gentleman; though I must confess that his +conduct—perhaps, too, a little something even in his appearance, somewhat +belied the term. Anyhow, gentleman let us call him.’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford, all attention, nodded, and encouragingly smiled. +</p> + +<p> +‘I’m not one of those tiresome, suspicious people, Mr Lawford, who distrust +strangers. I have never been molested, and I have enjoyed many and many a most +interesting, and sometimes instructive, talk with an individual whom I’ve never +seen in my life before, and this side of the grave perhaps, am never likely to +see again.’ She lifted her head with pursed lips, and gravely yet still +flickeringly regarded him once more. ‘Well, I made some trifling remark—the +weather, the view, what-not,’ she explained with a little jerk of her +shoulder—‘and to my extreme astonishment he turned and addressed me by +name—Miss Sinnet. Unmistakably—Sinnet. Now, perhaps, and very rightly, you +won’t considered <i>that</i> a very peculiar thing to do? But you will +recollect, Mr Lawford, that I had been sitting there a considerable time. +Surely, now, if you had recognised my face you would have addressed me at +once?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Was he, do you think, Miss Sinnet, a little uncertain, perhaps?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Never mind, never mind; let me get on with my story first. The next thing my +gentleman does is more mysterious still. His whole manner was a little +peculiar, perhaps—a certain restlessness, what, in fact, one might be almost +tempted to call a certain furtiveness of behaviour. Never mind. What he does +next is to ask me a riddle! Perhaps you won’t think <i>that</i> was peculiar +either?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘What was the riddle?’ smiled Lawford. +</p> + +<p> +‘Why, to be sure, to guess his name! Simply guided, so I surmised, by some very +faint resemblance in his face to his <i>mother</i>, who was, he assured me, an +old schoolfellow of mine at <i>Brighton</i>. I thought and thought. I confess +the adventure was beginning to be a little perplexing. But of course, very, +very few of my old schoolfellows remain distinctly in my memory now; and I fear +<i>that</i> grows more treacherous the longer I live. Their faces as girls are +clear enough. But later in life most of them drifted out of sight—many, alas, +are dead; and, well, at last I narrowed my man down to one. And who now, do you +suppose <i>that</i> was?’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford sustained an expression of abysmal mystification. ‘Do tell me—who?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Your own poor dear mother, Mr Lawford.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘<i>He</i> said so?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘No, no,’ said the old lady, with some vexation, closing her eyes. ‘<i>I</i> +said so. He asked me to guess. And I guessed Mary Lawford; now do you see?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Yes, yes. But <i>was</i> he like her, Miss Sinnet? That was really very, very +extraordinary. Did you see <i>any</i> likeness in his face?’ +</p> + +<p> +Miss Sinnet very deliberately took her spectacles out of their case again. +‘Now, see here, sir; this is being practical, isn’t it? I’m just going to take +a leisurely glance at yours. But you mustn’t let me forget the time. You must +look after the time for me.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘It’s about a quarter to ten,’ said Lawford, having glanced first at the +stopped clock on the chimney-piece and then at his watch. He then sat quite +still and endeavoured to sit at ease, while the old lady lifted her bonneted +head and ever so gravely and benignly surveyed him. +</p> + +<p> +‘H’m,’ she said at last. ‘There’s no mistaking <i>you</i>. It’s Mary’s chin, +and Mary’s brow—with just a little something, perhaps, of her dreamy eye. But +you haven’t all her looks, Mr Lawford, by any manner of means. She was a very +beautiful girl, and so vivacious, so fanciful—it was, I suppose the foreign +strain showing itself. Even marriage did not quite succeed in spoiling her.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘The foreign strain?’ Lawford glanced with a kind of fleeting fixity at the +quiet old figure. ‘The foreign strain?’ +</p> + +<p> +Your mother’s maiden name, my dear Mr Lawford, surely memory does not deceive +me in that, was van der Gucht. <i>That</i>, I believe, is a foreign name.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Ah, yes,’ said Lawford, his rising thoughts sinking quietly to rest again. +‘Van der Gucht, of course. I—how stupid of me!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘As a matter of fact, your mother was very proud of her Dutch blood. But +there,’ she flung out little fin-like sleeves, ‘if you don’t let me keep to my +story I shall go back as uneasy as I came. And you didn’t,’ she added even more +fretfully, ‘you didn’t tell me the time.’ +</p> + +<p> +Lawford stared at his watch again for some few moments without replying. ‘It’s +a few minutes to ten,’ he said at last. +</p> + +<p> +‘Dear me! And I’m keeping the cabman! I must hurry on. Well, now, I put it to +you; you shall be my father confessor—though I detest the idea in real life—was +I wrong? Was I justified in professing to the poor fellow that I detected a +likeness when there was extremely little likeness there?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘What! None at all!’ cried Lawford; ‘not the faintest trace?’ +</p> + +<p> +‘My dear good Mr Lawford,’ she expostulated, patting her lap, ‘there’s very +little more than a trace of my dear beautiful Mary in <i>you</i>, her own son. +How could there be—how could you expect it in him, a complete stranger? No, it +was nothing but my own foolish kindliness. It might have been Mary’s son for +all that I could recollect. I haven’t for years, please remember, had the +pleasure of receiving a visit from <i>you</i>. I am firmly of opinion that I +was justified. My motive was entirely benevolent. And then—to my positive +amazement—well, I won’t say hard things of the absent; but he suddenly turns +round on me with a “Thank you, Miss Bennett.” Bennett, hark ye! Perhaps you +won’t agree that I had any justification in being vexed and—and affronted at +<i>that</i>.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘I think, Miss Sinnet,’ said Lawford solemnly, ‘that you were perfectly +justified. Oh, perfectly. I wonder even you had the patience to give the real +Arthur Lawford a chance to ask your forgiveness for—for the stranger.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Well, candidly,’ said Miss Sinnett severely. ‘I was very much scandalised; and +I shouldn’t be here now telling you my story if it hadn’t been for your +mother.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘My mother!’ +</p> + +<p> +The old lady rather grimly enjoyed his confusion. ‘Yes, Mr Lawford, your +mother. I don’t know why—something in his manner, something in his face—so +dejected, so unhappy, so—if it is not uncharitablnesse to say it—so wild: it +has haunted me: I haven’t been able to put the matter out of my mind. I have +lain awake in my bed thinking of him. Why did he speak to me, I keep asking +myself. Why did he play me so very aimless a trick? How had he learned my name? +Why was he sitting there so solitary and so dejected? And worse even than that, +what has become of him? A little more patience, a little more charity, +perhaps—what might I not have done for him? The whole thing has harassed and +distressed me more than I can say. Would you believe it, I have actually twice, +and on one occasion, three times in a day made my way to the seat—hoping to see +him there. And I am not so young as I was. And then, as I say, to crown all, I +had a most remarkable dream about your mother. But that’s my own affair. +Elderly people like me are used—well, perhaps I won’t say used—we’re not +surprised or disturbed by visits from those who have gone before. We live, in a +sense, among the tombs; though I would not have you fancy it’s in any way a +morbid or unhappy life to lead. We don’t talk about it—certainly not to young +people. Let them enjoy their Eden while they can; though there’s plenty of +apples, I fear, on the Tree yet, Mr Lawford.’ +</p> + +<p> +She leant forward and whispered it with a big, simple smile:—‘We don’t even +discuss it much among ourselves. But as one gets nearer and nearer to the +wicket-gate there’s other company around one than you’ll find in—in the +directory. And that is why I have just come on here tonight. Very probably my +errand may seem to have no meaning for you. You look ill, but you don’t appear +to be in any great trouble or adversity, as I feared in my—well, there—as I +feared you might be. I must say, though, it seems a terribly empty house. And +no lights, too!’ +</p> + +<p> +She slowly, with a little trembling nodding of her bonnet, turned her head and +glanced quietly, fixedly, and unflinchingly, out of the half-open door. ‘But +that’s not my affair.’ And again she looked at him for a little while. +</p> + +<p> +Then she stooped forward and touched him kindly and trustingly on the knee. +‘Trouble or no trouble,’ she said, ‘it’s never too late to remind a man of his +mother. And I’m sure, Mr Lawford, I’m very glad to hear you are struggling up +out of your illness again. We must keep a brave heart, forty or seventy, +whichever we may be: “While the evil days come not nor the years draw nigh when +thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them,” though they have not come to me +even yet; and I trust from the bottom of my heart, not to <i>you</i>.’ +</p> + +<p> +She looked at him without a trace of emotion or constraint in her large, quiet +face, and their eyes met for a moment in that brief, fixed, baffling fashion +that seems to prove that mankind is after all but a dumb masked creature +saddled with the vain illusion of speech. +</p> + +<p> +‘And now that I’ve eased my conscience,’ said the old lady, pulling down her +veil, ‘I must beg pardon for intruding at such an hour of the evening. And may +I have your arm down those dreadful steps? Really, Mr Lawford, judging from the +houses they erect for us, the builders must have a very peculiar notion of +mankind. Is the fly still there? I expressly told the man to wait, and what I +am going to do if—!’ +</p> + +<p> +‘He’s there,’ Lawford reassured her, craning his neck in their slow progress to +catch a peep into the quiet road. And like a flock of birds scared by a chance +comer at their feeding in some deserted field, a whirring cloud of memories +swept softly up in his mind—memories whose import he made no effort to +discover. None the less, the leisurely descent became in their company +something of a real experience even in such a brimming week. +</p> + +<p> +‘I hope, some day, you will really tell me your dream?’ he said, pushing the +old lady’s silk skirts in after her as she slowly climbed into the carriage. +</p> + +<p> +‘Ah, my dear Lawford, when you are my age,’ she called back to him, groping her +way into the rather musty gloom, ‘you’ll dream such dreams for yourself. Life’s +not what’s just the fashion. And there are queerer things to be seen and heard +just quietly in one’s solitude than this busy life gives us time to discover. +But as for my mystifying Bewley acquaintance—I confess I cannot make head or +tail of him.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Was he,’ said Lawford rather vaguely, looking up into the dim white face that +with its plumes filled nearly the whole carriage window, ‘was his face very +unpleasing?’ +</p> + +<p> +She raised a gloved hand. ‘It has haunted me, haunted me, Mr Lawford; its—its +conflict! Poor fellow; I hope, I do hope, he faced his trouble out. But I shall +never see him again.’ +</p> + +<p> +He squeezed the trembling, kindly old hand. ‘I bet, Miss Sinnet,’ he said +earnestly, ‘even your having <i>thought</i> kindly of the poor beggar eased his +mind—whoever he may have been. I assure you, assure you of that.’ +</p> + +<p> +‘Ay, but I did more than <i>think</i>,’ replied the old lady with a chuckle +that might have seemed even a little derisive if it had not been so profoundly +magnanimous. +</p> + +<p> +He watched the old black fly roll slowly off, and still smiling at Miss +Sinnet’s inscrutable finesse went back into the house. ‘And now, my friend,’ he +said, addressing peacefully the thronging darkness, ‘the time’s nearly up for +me to go too.’ +</p> + +<p> +He had made up his mind. Or, rather, it seemed as if in the unregarded silences +of this last long talk his mind had made up itself. Only among impossibilities +had he the shadow of a choice. In this old haunted house, amid this shallow +turmoil no practicable clue could show itself of a way out. He would go away +for a while. +</p> + +<p> +He left the door ajar behind him for the moments still left, and stood for a +while thinking. Then, lamp in hand, he descended into the breakfast-room for +pen, ink, and paper. He sat for some time in that underground calm, nibbling +his pen like a harassed and self-conscious schoolboy. At last he began: +</p> + +<p> +‘MY DEAR SHEILA,—I must tell you, to begin with, that the <i>change</i> has now +all passed away. I am—as near as man can be—completely myself again. And next: +that I overheard all that was said to-night in the dining-room. +</p> + +<p> +‘I’m sorry for listening; but it’s no good going over all that now. Here I am, +and, as you said, for Alice’s sake we must make the best of it. I am going away +for a while, to get, if I can, a chance to quiet down. I suppose every one +comes sooner or later to a time in life when there is nothing else to be done +but just shut one’s eyes and blunder on. And that’s all I can do now—blunder +on....’ +</p> + +<p> +He paused, and suddenly, at the echo of the words in his mind, a revulsion of +feeling—shame and hatred of himself surged up, and he tore his letter into tiny +pieces. Once more he began, ‘my dear Sheila,’ dropped his pen, sat on for a +long time, cold and inert, harbouring almost unendurably a pitiful, hopeless +longing.... He would write to Grisel another day. +</p> + +<p> +He leant back in his chair, his fingers pressed against his eyelids. And +clearer than those which myriad-hued reality can ever present, pictures of the +imagination swam up before his eyes. It seemed, indeed, that even now some +ghost, some revenant of himself was sitting there, in the old green churchyard, +roofed only with a thousand thousand stars. The breath of darkness stirred +softly on his cheek. Some little scampering shape slipped by. A bird on high +cried weirdly, solemnly, over the globe. He shuddered faintly, and looked out +again into the small lamplit room. +</p> + +<p> +Here, too, was quite as inexplicable a coming and going. A fly was walking on +the table beneath his eyes, with the uneasy gait of one that has outlived his +hour and most of his companions. Mice were scampering and shrieking in the +empty kitchen. And all about him, in the viewless air, the phantoms of another +life passed by, unmindful of his motionless body. He fell into a lethargy of +the senses, and only gradually became aware after a while of the strange +long-drawn sigh of rain at the window. He rose and opened it. The night air +flowed in, chilled with its waters and faintly fragrant of the dust. It soothed +away all thought for a while. He turned back to his chair. He would wait until +the rain had lulled before starting.... +</p> + +<p> +A little before midnight the door was softly, and with extreme care, pushed +open, and Mr Bethany’s old face, with an intense and sharpened scrutiny, looked +in on the lamplit room. And as if still intent on the least sound within the +empty walls around him, he came near, and stooping across the table, stared +through his spectacles at the sidelong face of his friend, so still, with hands +so lightly laid on the arms of his chair that the old man had need to watch +closely to detect in his heavy slumber the slow measured rise and fall of his +breast. +</p> + +<p> +He turned wearily away muttering a little, between an immeasurable relief and a +now almost intolerable medley of vexations. What <i>was</i> this monstrous web +of Craik’s? What <i>had</i> the creature been nodding and ducketing +about?—those whisperings, that tattling? And what in the end, when you were old +and sour and out-strategied, what was the end to be of this urgent dream called +Life? He sat quietly down and drew his hands over his face, pushed his lean +knotted fingers up under his spectacles, then sat blinking—and softly slowly +deciphered the solitary ‘My dear Sheila’ on Lawford’s note-paper. ‘H’m,’ he +muttered, and looked up again at the dark still eyelids that in the strange +torpor of sleep might yet be dimly conveying to the dreaming brain behind them +some hint of his presence. ‘I wish to goodness, you wonderful old creature,’ he +muttered, wagging his head, ‘I wish to goodness you’d wake up.’ +</p> + +<p> +For some time he sat on, listening to the still soft downpour on the fading +leaves. ‘They don’t come to <i>me</i>,’ he said softly again; with a tiny smile +on his old face. ‘It’s that old medieval Craik: with a face like a last year’s +rookery!’ And again he sat, with head a little sidelong, listening now to the +infinitesimal sounds of life without, now to the thoughts within, and ever and +again he gazed steadfastly on Lawford. +</p> + +<p> +At last it seemed in the haunted quietness other thoughts came to him. A cloud, +as it were of youth, drew over the wrinkled skin, composed the birdlike +keenness; his head nodded. Once, like Lawford in the darkness at Widderstone, +he glanced up sharply across the lamplight at his phantasmagorical shadowy +companion, heard the steady surge of multitudinous rain-drops, like the roar of +Time’s winged chariot hurrying near; then he too, with spectacles awry, bobbed +on in his chair, a weary old sentinel on the outskirts of his friend’s denuded +battlefield. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RETURN ***</div> +<div style='text-align:left'> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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