IN midwinter the shadow that hung over John gathered into storm-cloud.
Miss Lindon, in pathetic despair, had abandoned her notion of turning
Unity into a young lady of young-ladylike accomplishments. She could
perform whatever marvels of exquisite sewing Miss Lindon could imagine,
but there her proficiency in the elegances came to an end. The girl's
tastes, Miss Lindon lamented, were so plebeian! She would sooner make
puddings than afternoon calls; she would sooner sweep and dust and
polish than read instructive or entertaining literature. In her
child-of-the-people's practical way, she had ousted Miss Lindon from the
management of the household, thereby coming into conflict with the stern
Phoebe, no longer feared, who hitherto had carried out, according to her
own fancy, the kind lady's nebulous directions. Miss Lindon sighed,
and surrendered her keys, inwardly thankful to be relieved of crushing
responsibilities. She had never known how to order dinner for John. If,
after agonized searching, she had decided on lamb, and sweet peas and
grouse and asparagus, it was only to be told that some or all of them
were out of season. And she could never check the laundry-list, so
eternally mysterious were the garments worn by man.
Unity was a born economist. As soon as she took over the seals of
office, she abolished the easy and expensive system of tradesmen calling
for orders. She herself marketed, and that was her great joy. Every
day she took her market-bag and busied herself among the shops in the
Kilburn High Road, choosing her meat with an uncanny sureness of vision,
knocking extortionate pennies off the prices of vegetables, and
seeing generally that she had good value for her money. Miss Lindon,
accompanying her on one or two of these excursions, was shocked and
scared at her temerity. How dared she talk like that to the greengrocer?
Unity replied that she would talk to him until he did n't know himself
if he gave her any more of his nonsense. She was n't going to allow her
guardian to be robbed by any of them, not she; she was up to all their
tricks.
“I suppose you thought that was a good lettuce, Auntie?”
“I am no judge, dear,” said Miss Lindon; “but surely you ought n't to
have hurt his feelings by saying that its proper place was the dust-bin,
and not a respectable shop.”
“He understands me all right,” laughed Unity.
All the tradesmen did, and they respected the shrewdness of the
businesslike little plebeian, whom they recognized and treated as one of
their own class; and Unity saved her beloved guardian many shillings a
week, which was a matter of proud gratification. She held her head high
nowadays. She had found herself.
Once chatting casually with Herold, John said with the air of Sir
Oracle:
“Unity has got quite a strong character.”
Herold laughed. “Did n't I tell you so nearly three years ago? You would
n't believe me.”
“You talked some nonsense about love,” growled John.
“Well, have n't you given it to her in your bearish way? What would you
do in this house without her? You'd be utterly miserable.”
“I suppose I should,” said John. “But I wish you would get out of the
infernal habit of always being in the right.”
One afternoon--it was the Saturday before Christmas--Unity took the
market-bag and went out to do her shopping. Evening had fallen on a
thin, black fog. The busy thoroughfare was a bewildering fusion of flare
and gloom. The Christmas crowd, eager to purchase or to gladden their
eyes with good things unpurchaseable, thronged the pavements--an
ordinary, crowd of middle-class folk, careless of the foggy air,
enjoying the Christmas promise in shops almost vulgarly replete. A
hundred rosetted carcasses in a butcher's shop where ten hung the day
before is marvel enough to attract the comfortable loiterer, and the
happy butcher's “Buy! Buy!” as he stands in a blaze of light sharpening
his knife, is an attraction peculiarly fascinating. What with the stream
entering and issuing from shops, the wedges of loiterers glued to shop
windows, the two main currents of saunterers, progress was difficult.
In the murky roadway motor-omnibuses and carts flashed mysteriously by
in endless traffic. All was uproar and ant-heap confusion.
Unity, resolute, squat little figure, made her purchases, and, having
made them, lingered, joyously in the throbbing street, her hereditary
element. She was never so happy as when rubbing shoulders with her kind.
The whistling shop-boy and the giggling work-girl were her congeners.
For the sake of her guardian and Aunt Gladys she never spoke to such
ungenteel persons, but in their swiftly passing company she had a sense
of comfort and comradeship. Often she went out without knowing why. The
street called her.
The sights and sounds of it provided an ever-changing, ever-exciting
drama. A street accident, a fallen horse, a drunken man, held her
fascinated. And tonight the abnormal life of the street afforded an
extra thrill of exhilaration; there was so much to see. At last she
found her progress blocked by a crowd hanging about a confectioner's
window. She wormed her way through, and was rewarded by the enthralling
spectacle of a huge clock-work figure of Father Christmas, who drew
from his wallet the shop's special plum-pudding at ninepence-halfpenny
a pound. It was mighty fine, and Unity never heeded the tossing and
buffeting of the admiring crowd..The light shone hard on the ring
of pink faces framed by the blackness beyond. Then eager sight-seers
jostled her into the background.
Suddenly she felt a sharp and awful pain in her side. She shrieked aloud
and turned. The baffling figure of a woman in black hurrying into the
maw of the darkness met her eyes before the startled crowd closed about
her. She put her hand instinctively to the tortured spot, and drew out
from her flesh a long hat-pin; then she fainted.
An assistant in the shop, coming out to know the cause of the hubbub,
recognized her and had her brought indoors. The policeman on the beat
soon shouldered his way in. They put poor Unity on a shutter, covered
her with rugs, and, followed by a tail of idlers, bore her to the house.
John came home soon afterwards and found an agitated Aunt Gladys in
process of being reassured by a kindly doctor that Unity was not dead.
The wound, though ugly and painful, was little more than flesh deep.
The hat-pin had glanced off a corset bone and penetrated obliquely.
Straightly driven, however, it would have been a deadly thrust. Of the
murderous intent there could hardly be any doubt. A sergeant of police
was also waiting for John; but John let him wait, and rushed in his
bull-like way upstairs.
Unity, who had long since recovered consciousness, lay in bed, her wound
tended, a cheerful fire lit, and Phoebe in attendance. John dismissed
the latter with a gesture and flung himself on his knees by the head of
the bed.
“'My God! child, what has happened?”
For all the difference of surroundings,--the pretty room and fine
linen,--the common little face on the pillow was singularly like that
which he had seen in the orphanage infirmary. But there was a deeper
trust in the girl's eyes, for they were lit with a flash of joy at his
great distress.
She recounted simply what had occurred.
“You saw the woman disappear?”
“I think so. It was all so quick.”
It was a woman's stab. What man would use a hat-pin? And there could be
only one woman alive who would stab Unity.
“Did you recognize her?”
His voice was hoarse, and his rugged face full of pain. She regarded him
steadily.
“No, Guardian.”
“It was not--she?”
“No,” said Unity.
“Are you sure?”
Unity clenched her hands and turned away, and her eyes grew hard.
“If it was, I should have known her.”
John rose to his feet and stood over her, his arms folded, and looked
at her from beneath his heavy brows. Unity met his gaze. And so they
remained for a second or two, and each knew that the other knew who had
dealt the blow.
“It was n't her,” said Unity.
The words were stamped with finality. John, meeting the girl's set
gaze, had a glimpse of rocky strata far beneath. No process of question
invented by man would induce her to unsay the words.
“There's a police sergeant downstairs,” said he.
“I did n't see no woman either,” said Unity, significantly.
And John did not notice her unusual relapse into orphanage speech.
Soon afterward he left her and joined the sergeant in the hall. The
policeman asked the stereotyped questions. John replied that Miss
Blake--it was, as far as he knew, the first time he had given Unity her
full style and title, and the name sounded odd in his ears--that Miss
Blake had seen nothing of her assailant and could give no information
whatever.
“You suspect nobody?”
“Nobody at all,” said John, decisively. “You need n't trouble to pursue
the matter any further, for the wound luckily is trifling, and in any
case I should not prosecute.”
“As you please, sir,” said the Sergeant.
“Good evening, and thank you,” said John.
“This is the hat-pin, sir.”
“You can leave it with me,” said John.
He went into his study and examined the thing. It was of common make,
the head being a ball of black glass. A million such are sold in cheap
shops.
He had no doubt as to the owner. She had spied upon him craftily, bided
her time, and had then struck. He had not seen her since the day they
had met in Maida Vale and he had unceremoniously packed her home,
and for the last few months she had not molested him. Now came this
unforeseen, dastardly attack.
He rang for Phoebe, gave a message for Miss Lindon, and went out with an
ugly look on his face. A taxicab whirled him swiftly across London to
Amelia Mansions in the Fulham Road. Mrs. Bence answered his ring.
He stepped into the hall, and in his blundering way strode down the
passage. The woman checked him.
“Mrs. Rawlings is n't in, sir. She is with Mrs. Oscraft, the lady
down-stairs.”
He turned abruptly.
“Has she been out this afternoon?”
“She went out to lunch with Mrs. Oscraft and came back with her an hour
ago.”
He drew the hat-pin from the inside of his overcoat, where he had stuck
it. “Do you recognize this?”
The woman looked puzzled. “No, sir,” she said. “Mrs. Rawlings has n't
any like it?”
Mrs. Bence inspected the pin. “No, I'm sure. If she had, I would have
known.” She saw the trouble in his face. “What has happened, sir?”
He told her briefly. The woman knitted a perplexed brow.
“I don't see how it could have been her, sir,” she said. “She's nearly
always with Mrs. Oscraft, and very seldom goes out by herself, and
to-day, as I 've said, she went out and came back with her. And I'm sure
she has n't had a hat-pin like that in use.”
“What exactly is this Mrs. Oscraft?” he asked. Mrs. Bence added to his
vague knowledge. Her husband was a book-maker, very often absent from
home, having to frequent race-meetings and taverns and other such
resorts of his trade. She had many friends, male and female, of the same
kidney, a crew rowdy and vulgar, but otherwise harmless. She and Mrs.
Rawlings had become inseparable.
“I 'll go down and see her,” said John.
Mrs. Oscraft, an overblown blonde, floppily attired, opened the door of
her flat.
“Hello! Who are you?” she asked.
He explained that he was the husband of Mrs. Rawlings.
“So you are. She 's got a portrait of you. Besides, I 've seen you here.
She 's in the drawing-room. Come along in and have a whisky and soda or a
glass of champagne.”
He declined. “I owe you a thousand apologies for intruding,” said he,
“but if you would answer me just one question, I should be greatly
obliged.”
“Fire away,” said the lady. “Won't you really come in?”
“No, thank you,” said John. “Will you tell me where my wife has been
this afternoon?”
“With me all the time,” said Mrs. Oscraft, promptly. “We 've been doing
Christmas shopping in Kensington High Street, and only just got back.”
“She did n't go near Kilburn?”
“Lord bless you, no!” said the lady. “Look here, would you like to see
her?”
“No,” said John. He apologized again, and bade her good evening. He
descended the stone stairs with a bewildered feeling that he had made a
fool of himself; and Mrs. Oscraft, as soon as the door was shut, put her
thumb to her nose and twiddled her fingers in the traditional gesture of
derision.
John went away sore and angry, like a bull that, charging at a man,
unexpectedly butts up against a stone wall. He had no reason for
disbelieving Mrs. Oscraft, and the hat-pin was not his wife's. Yet
who but his wife could have been the aggressor? It might have been an
accident. It might have been a man--such cases are not uncommon--with
the stabbing and cutting mania. Unity's fleeting glimpse of the woman
in black might have been a trick of shadow in the lamplit fog. Yet in
the deed he felt the hand of the revengeful and cruel woman. He was
baffled.
On his way home he called on Herold, whom he found at dinner.
“I shall never know a moment's peace of mind,” he said gloomily, after
they had discussed the matter, “until she is put under restraint. If
she did n't do it, as you make out--” Herold held to the theory that a
person could not be in two places, Kensington and Kilbum, at the same
time--“she is quite capable of it.”
“It's a mercy,” said Herold, “that you did not see her and tax her with
the offence, and so put the idea into her head.”
“I believe she did it all the same,” said John, obstinately.
“But why should Mrs. Oscraft have lied? Mrs. Bence saw them go out and
come in together. You can't suppose the other woman was an accomplice.
It's absurd.”
“I know it is,” said John. “But the absurd often turns up in a
churchwarden's unhumorous kit of reality in this Bedlam of a world.”
They argued until it was time for Herold to go to his theatre, when John
went home and ate a belated dinner in such a black mood that Miss Lindon
dared not question him.
And that was the end of the matter. Unity's wound healed after a few
days, and sturdily refusing Phoebe's protection on her walks abroad,
she resumed her marketing in the Kilburn High Road. John called on the
district inspector of police and obtained the ready promise that folks
running amuck with hatpins should be summarily arrested and that his
house and ward should be placed under special supervision.
It was characteristic of the terms of dumb confidence on which John and
Unity lived together that neither of them referred again to the possible
perpetrator of the outrage. When she became aware that the policemen in
this district always kept her respectfully in sight and, on passing her,
saluted, she knew that her guardian had so ordained things. One day in
the New Year she entered his study, and stood at attention.
“Please, Guardian, may I have half-a-crown?”
He fished the coin out of his trousers' pocket and handed it to her.
“I don't want it for myself,” she said.
She had her allowance for pin-money, which she was too proud to exceed.
As a matter of fact, she hoarded her pennies in the top of an old
coffee-pot and out of her savings bought not only finery for herself,
but startling birthday and Christmas presents for her guardian and Aunt
Gladys. It was astonishing what Unity could do with elevenpence three
farthings.
John, knowing her ways, smiled.
“What do you want it for, then?”
“I'm going to give it to my best policeman,” she said, and marched out
of the room.
That was her only acknowledgement of her appreciation of the measures he
had taken to ensure her safety. He understood, and, when telling Herold
of the incident, called her, after the loose way of man, “a rum kid.” Of
the obvious he was aware, and it pleased him; but subtler manifestations
escaped his notice. It never occurred to him that it was more than a
pleasing accident of domestic life when, on letting himself into the
house with his latch-key, he should find Unity, drab and stolid, her
cheeks and snub nose and prominent forehead shining in the unladylike
way deplored by Miss Lindon, as if polished with yellow soap, and her
skimpy hair bunched up ungracefully, with patient, unchanging eyes,
awaiting him in the little hall, her hands already outstretched to take
hat and stick and to help him off with his overcoat. Yet ninety-nine
times out of a hundred it happened. He did not notice the orderly
confusion wrought by the ingenuity of sleepless nights out of the
chaos of his study. Wishes--just the poor, commonplace little wishes
of household life--what could poor, commonplace little Unity, with her
limited soul-horizon, do more for him? wishes vaguely formulated in
his mind he found quickly and effectively realized, and worried,
hard-working, honest man that he was, he took the practical comforts
sometimes as a matter of course, now and then with a careless word of
thanks, and never dreamed--how could he?--of the passionate endeavour
whereby these poor, commonplace little things came to pass.
There can be as much beautiful expenditure of soul--as beautiful in
the eyes of God, to whom, as to any philosopher with a working idea of
infinity, the fall of a rose-petal must be as important as the fall of
an empire--in the warming of a man's slippers before the fire by the
woman who loves him as in all the heroisms of all the Joans of Arc and
the Charlotte Cordays and the window-breaking, policeman-scratching,
forcibly fed female martyrs of modern London that have ever existed. It
is a proposition as incontrovertible as any elementary theorem of Euclid
you please; but so essentially unphilosophic is man, to say nothing of
woman,--for a man would sooner break stones, play bridge, go bankrupt,
slaughter his wife and family, or wear a straw hat with a frock-coat
than brace his mind to think--that this self-evident truth passes him by
unrecognized, unperceived, unguessed.
The volcanic forces of life--essentially such as act and react
between man and woman--lie hidden deep down in the soul's unknown and
unsuspected cauldron, and their outward manifestations are only here and
there a puff of smoke so fine and blue that it merges at once into the
caressing air. The good, easy man plants his vines on the mountain-side.
The sky is serene, the sun fills his grapes with joyousness. Then comes
eruption, and the smiling slope is smitten into the grin of a black
death's-head.