‘The late Mr. Cumfrit’s, sir,’ said Mrs. Mitcham.
Of course. Really his control was gone; he was no longer apparently able
to keep his thoughts from plunging into the most incredible places.
He stropped the razors, thinking of the probable last time they had been
stropped by his father-in-law before being folded away by him who would
never strop again, and shaved in front of the glass in the bathroom
before which the excellent man must so often have stood. <i>Pulvis et
umbra sumum</i>, said Stephen to himself in his profound dejection,
forgetting for a moment the glorious resurrection he so carefully
believed in. At what point did one, he wondered, his mind returning to
his troubles,--at what point did one, in the circumstances in which he
found himself, inform the police?
He forced himself to eat some breakfast for fear he might otherwise
collapse in the pulpit, and he drank a cup of strong coffee with the
same idea of being kept up. The thought that it was his own
mother-in-law who had brought all this trouble on him had a peculiar
sting. Quite evidently there had been an accident, and God knew how he
would get through his sermon, with the fear crushing him of the effect
such terrible news would have on the beloved mother of his child to be.
There was no blessing, he told himself, outside the single straight path
of one’s duty. If his mother-in-law had continued in that path as she
used to continue in it, instead of suddenly taking to giving way to
every impulse--that she should still have impulses was in itself
indecent--this misery for Virginia, and accordingly for himself, would
have been avoided. To go rushing about the country with a young
man,--why, how scandalous at her age. And the punishment for this, the
accident that had so evidently happened, fell most heavily, as
punishments so mysteriously often did--only one must not question God’s
wisdom--on the innocent. What living thing in the whole world could be
more innocent than his wife? Except the child; except the little soul of
love she bore about with her beneath her heart; and that too would
suffer through her suffering.
Stephen prayed. He couldn’t bear the thought of what Virginia was going
to suffer. He bowed his head on his arms and prayed. Mrs. Mitcham found
him like this when she came to clear away the breakfast. She was deeply
sorry for him; he seemed to have been so much more attached to her
mistress than one would have ever guessed.
‘You’ll feel better, sir,’ she consoled him, ‘when your breakfast has
had more time.’ And she ventured to ask, ‘Was it Miss Virginia’s car
bringing Mrs. Cumfrit up? I beg pardon, sir--I mean, your car? Because
if so, I’ll be bound she’ll be safe with Smithers.’
Stephen shook his head. He could bear no questions. He could not go into
the story of the motor-cycle with Mrs. Mitcham. He felt ill after his
night walking about the drawing-room; his head seemed to be bursting. He
got up and left the room.
He had to go to the hotel on his way to St. Jude’s to fetch his sermon.
He waited till the last possible minute, still hoping that some news
might come; and then, when he dared wait no longer, and Mrs. Mitcham
was helping him into his coat, he told her he would come back
immediately after morning service and consider what steps should be
taken as to informing the police.
‘The police?’ repeated Mrs. Mitcham, much shocked. The police and her
mistress. Out of her heart disappeared the last ray of optimism.
‘We must somehow find out what has happened,’ said Stephen sharply.
‘Yes, sir,’ said Mrs. Mitcham, opening the door for him.
The police and her mistress. She had a feeling that the mere putting the
police on to search would make them find something dreadful,--that if
nothing had happened, the moment they began to look something would have
happened.
Feeling profoundly conscious of being only a weak woman in a world full
of headstrong men, she opened the door for Stephen, and he, going
through it without further speech, met Catherine coming out of the
lift,--Catherine perfectly sound and unharmed,--and with her was
Christopher.
They all three stopped dead.
‘You, Stephen?’ said Catherine after a moment, very faintly. ‘Why,
how----?’
‘I have,’ said Stephen, ‘been waiting all night. Waiting and watching
for you.’
‘I--we--broke down.’
He made a sign to the lift boy that he was coming down with him.
‘Enough--enough,’ he said, with a queer gesture of pushing her and
everything connected with her out of his sight; and hurried into the
lift and disappeared.
Catherine and Christopher looked at each other.