Mr. Nugent was astonished and even a little peevish when, on arriving
home after dark, he found the parlor lamp a-smoke and his wife absent.
He inquired for her; the mistress had slipped upstairs scarcely ten
minutes ago. He shouted at the bottom of the stairs, but there was no
response. And after he had taken his boots off, and his desire for
supper had become poignant, he himself stepped upstairs to see into
the matter....
It was several minutes, even after the conveyal of an apparently
inanimate body downstairs, before his wife first made clear signs of
intelligence; and even these were little more than grotesque
expressions of fear--rolling eyes and exclamations. It was another
quarter of an hour before any kind of connected story could be got out
of her. One conclusion only was evident, that Mrs. Nugent did not
propose to fetch the forgotten candle still burning on the
cloth-covered, brass-nailed table, but that it must be fetched
instantly; the door locked on the outside, and the key laid before her
on that tablecloth. These were the terms that must be conceded before
any further details were gone into.
Plainly there was but one person to carry out these instructions, for
the little servant-maid was already all eyes and mouth at the few
pregnant sentences that had fallen from her mistress's lips. So
Mr. Nugent himself, cloth cap and all, stepped upstairs once more.
He paused at the door and looked in.
All was entirely as usual. In spite of the unpleasant expectancy
roused, in spite of himself and his godliness, by the words of his
wife and her awful head-nodding, the room gave back to him no echo or
lingering scent of horror. The little bed stood there, white and
innocent in the candlelight, the drawer still gaped, showing its
pathetic contents; the furniture, pictures, texts, and all the rest
remained in their places, harmless and undefiled as when Amy herself
had set them there.
He looked carefully round before entering; then, stepping forward, he
took the candle, closed the drawer, not without difficulty, glanced
round once more, and went out, locking the door behind him.
"A pack of nonsense!" he said, as he tossed the key on to the table
before his wife.
The theological discussion waxed late that night, and by ten o'clock
Mrs. Nugent, under the influence of an excellent supper and a touch of
stimulant, had begun to condemn her own terrors, or rather to cease to
protest when her husband condemned them for her. A number of solutions
had been proposed for the startling little incident, to none of which
did she give an unqualified denial. It was the stooping that had done
it; there had been a rush of blood to the head that had emptied the
heart and caused the sinking feeling. It was the watercress eaten in
such abundance on the previous afternoon. It was the fact that she had
passed an unoccupied morning, owing to the closing of the shop. It was
one of those things, or all of them, or some other like one of them.
Even the little maid was reassured, when she came to take away the
supper things, by the cheerful conversation of the couple, though she
registered a private vow that for no consideration under heaven would
she enter the bedroom on the right at the top of the stairs.
About half-past ten Mrs. Nugent said that she would step up to bed;
and in that direction she went, accompanied by her husband, whose
program it was presently to step round to the "Wheatsheaf" for an hour
with the landlord after the bar was shut up.
At the door on the right hand he hesitated, but his wife passed on
sternly; and as she passed into their own bedroom a piece of news came
to his mind.
"That was Mr. Laurie you heard, Mary," said he. "Jim told me he saw
him go past just after dark.... Well, I'll take the house-key with
me."
_Chapter XVI_
I
"When is he coming?" asked Mrs. Baxter with a touch of peevishness, as
she sat propped up in her tall chair before the bedroom fire.
"He will be here about six," said Maggie. "Are you sure you have
finished?"
The old lady turned away her head from the rice pudding in a kind of
gesture of repulsion. She was in the fractious period of influenza,
and Maggie had had a hard time with her.
Nothing particular had happened for the last ten days. Mrs. Baxter's
feverish cold had developed, and she was but now emerging from the
nightdress and flannel-jacket stage to that of the petticoat and
dressing-gown. It was all very ordinary and untragic, and Maggie had
had but little time to consider the events on which her subconscious
attention still dwelt. Mr. Cathcart had had no particular news to give
her. Laurie, it seemed, was working silently with his coach, talking
little. Yet the old man did not for one instant withdraw one word that
he had said. Only, in answer to a series of positive inquiries from
the girl two days before, he had told her to wait and see him for
herself, warning her at the same time to show no signs of perturbation
to the boy.
And now the day was come--Easter Eve, as it happened--and she would
see him before night. He had sent no answer to her first letter; then,
finally, a telegram had come that morning announcing his train.
She was wondering with all her might that afternoon as to what she
would see. In a way she was terrified; in another way she was
contemptuous. The evidence was so extraordinarily confused. If he were
in danger of insanity, how was it that. Mr. Cathcart advised her to
get him down to a house with only two women and a few maids? Who was
there besides this old gentleman who ever dreamed that such a danger
was possible? How, if it was so obvious that she would see the change
for herself, was it that others--Mr. Morton, for example--had not seen
it too? More than ever the theory gained force in her mind that the
whole thing was grossly exaggerated by this old man, and that all that
was the matter with Laurie was a certain nervous strain.
Yet, for all that, as the afternoon closed in, she felt her nerves
tightening. She walked a little in the garden while the old lady took
her nap; she came in to read to her again from the vellum-bound little
book as the afternoon light began to fade. Then, after tea, she went
under orders to see for herself whether Laurie's room was as it should
be.
It struck her with an odd sense of strangeness as she went in; she
scarcely knew why; she told herself it was because of what she had
heard of him lately. But all was as it should be. There were spring
flowers on the table and mantelshelf, and a pleasant fire on the
hearth. It was even reassuring after she had been there a minute or
two.
Then she went to look at the smoking-room where she had sat with him
and heard the curious noise of the cracking wood on the night of the
thaw, when the boy had behaved so foolishly. Here, too, was a fire, a
tall porter's chair drawn on one side with its back to the door, and a
deep leather couch set opposite. There was a box of Laurie's
cigarettes set ready on the table--candles, matches, flowers, the
illustrated papers--yes, everything.
But she stood looking on it all for a few moments with an odd emotion.
It was familiar, homely, domestic--yet it was strange. There was an
air of expectation about it all.... Then on a sudden the emotions
precipitated themselves in tenderness.... Ah! poor Laurie....
* * * * *
"It is all perfectly right," she said to the old lady.
"Are the cigarettes there?"
"Yes: I noticed them particularly."
"And flowers?"
"Yes, flowers too."
"What time is it, my dear? I can't see."
Maggie peered at the clock.
"It's just after six, Auntie. Will you have the candles?"
The old lady shook her head.
"No, my dear: my eyes can't stand the light. Why hasn't the boy come?"
"Why, it's hardly time yet. Shall I bring him up at once?"
"Just for two minutes," sighed the old lady. "My head's bad again."
"Poor dear," said Maggie.
"Sit down, my dearest, for a few minutes. You'll hear the wheels from
here.... No, don't talk or read."
There, then, the two women sat waiting.
* * * * *
Outside the twilight was falling, layer on layer, over the spring
garden, in a great stillness. The chilly wind of the afternoon had
dropped, and there was scarcely a sound to be heard from the living
things about the house that once more were renewing their strength.
Yet over all, to the Catholic's mind at least, there lay a shadow of
death, from associations with that strange anniversary that was
passing, hour by hour....
As to what Maggie thought during those minutes of waiting, she could
have given afterwards no coherent description. Matters were too
complicated to think clearly; she knew so little; there were so many
hypotheses. Yet one emotion dominated the rest--expectancy with a
tinge of fear. Here she sat, in this peaceful room, with all the
homely paraphernalia of convalescence about her--the fire, the bed
laid invitingly open with a couple of books, and a reading-lamp on the
little table at the side, the faint smell of sandalwood; and before
the fire dozed a peaceful old lady full too of gentle expectation of
her son, yet knowing nothing whatever of the vague perils that were
about him, that had, indeed, whatever they were, already closed in on
him.... And that son was approaching nearer every instant through the
country lanes....
She rose at last and went on tiptoe to the window. The curtains had
not yet been drawn, and she could see in the fading light the
elaborate ironwork of the tall gate in the fence, and the common road
outside it, gleaming here and there in puddles that caught the green
color from the dying western sky. In front, on the lawn on this side,
burned tiny patches of white where the crocuses sprouted.
As she stood there, there came a sound of wheels, and a carriage came
in sight. It drew up at the gate, and the door opened.