'He knows I'm scarcely fit to look after myself,' was Conroy's thought.
'And he wants me to look after a woman!'
Yet, at the end of half an hour's irresolution, he accepted.
Now Conroy's trouble, which had lasted for years, was this:
On a certain night, while he lay between sleep and wake, he would be
overtaken by a long shuddering sigh, which he learned to know was the
sign that his brain had once more conceived its horror, and in time--in
due time--would bring it forth.
Drugs could so well veil that horror that it shuffled along no worse
than as a freezing dream in a procession of disorderly dreams; but over
the return of the event drugs had no control. Once that sigh had passed
his lips the thing was inevitable, and through the days granted before
its rebirth he walked in torment. For the first two years he had striven
to fend it off by distractions, but neither exercise nor drink availed.
Then he had come to the tabloids of the excellent M. Najdol. These
guarantee, on the label, 'Refreshing and absolutely natural sleep to the
soul-weary.' They are carried in a case with a spring which presses one
scented tabloid to the end of the tube, whence it can be lipped off in
stroking the moustache or adjusting the veil.
Three years of M. Najdol's preparations do not fit a man for many
careers. His friends, who knew he did not drink, assumed that Conroy had
strained his heart through valiant outdoor exercises, and Conroy had
with some care invented an imaginary doctor, symptoms, and regimen,
which he discussed with them and with his mother in Hereford. She
maintained that he would grow out of it, and recommended nux vomica.
When at last Conroy faced a real doctor, it was, he hoped, to be saved
from suicide by a strait-waistcoat. Yet Dr. Gilbert had but given him
more drugs--a tonic, for instance, that would couple railway
carnages--and had advised a night in the train. Not alone the horrors of
a railway journey (for which a man who dare keep no servant must e'en
pack, label, and address his own bag), but the necessity for holding
himself in hand before a stranger 'a little shaken in her nerves.'
He spent a long forenoon packing, because when he assembled and counted
things his mind slid off to the hours that remained of the day before
his night, and he found himself counting minutes aloud. At such times
the injustice of his fate would drive him to revolts which no servant
should witness, but on this evening Dr. Gilbert's tonic held him fairly
calm while he put up his patent razors.
Waterloo Station shook him into real life. The change for his ticket
needed concentration, if only to prevent shillings and pence turning
into minutes at the booking-office; and he spoke quickly to a porter
about the disposition of his bag. The old 10.8 from Waterloo to the West
was an all-night caravan that halted, in the interests of the milk
traffic, at almost every station.
Dr. Gilbert stood by the door of the one composite corridor-coach; an
older and stouter man behind him. 'So glad you're here!' he cried. 'Let
me get your ticket.'
'Certainly not,' Conroy answered. 'I got it myself--long ago. My bag's
in too,' he added proudly.
'I beg your pardon. Miss Henschil's here. I'll introduce you.'
'But--but,' he stammered--'think of the state I'm in. If anything
happens I shall collapse.'
'Not you. You'd rise to the occasion like a bird. And as for the
self-control you were talking of the other day'--Gilbert swung him
round--'look!'
A young man in an ulster over a silk-faced frock-coat stood by the
carriage window, weeping shamelessly.
'Oh, but that's only drink,' Conroy said. 'I haven't had one of my--my
things since lunch.'
'Excellent!' said Gilbert. 'I knew I could depend on you. Come along.
Wait for a minute, Chartres.'
A tall woman, veiled, sat by the far window. She bowed her head as the
doctor murmured Conroy knew not what. Then he disappeared and the
inspector came for tickets.
'My maid--next compartment,' she said slowly.
Conroy showed his ticket, but in returning it to the sleeve-pocket of
his ulster the little silver Najdolene case slipped from his glove and
fell to the floor. He snatched it up as the moving train flung him
into his seat.
'How nice!' said the woman. She leisurely lifted her veil, unbottoned
the first button of her left glove, and pressed out from its palm a
Najdolene-case.
'Don't!' said Conroy, not realising he had spoken.
'I beg your pardon.' The deep voice was measured, even, and low. Conroy
knew what made it so.
'I said "don't"! He wouldn't like you to do it!'
'No, he would not.' She held the tube with its ever-presented tabloid
between finger and thumb. 'But aren't you one of the--ah--"soul-weary"
too?'
'That's why. Oh, please don't! Not at first. I--I haven't had one since
morning. You--you'll set me off!'
'You? Are you so far gone as that?'
He nodded, pressing his palms together. The train jolted through
Vauxhall points, and was welcomed with the clang of empty milk-cans
for the West.
After long silence she lifted her great eyes, and, with an innocence
that would have deceived any sound man, asked Conroy to call her maid to
bring her a forgotten book.