THE NIGHT WATCH
Like all delightful things, Mrs. Nevill Tyson's laughter was short-lived.
When Tyson went up to bed that night between twelve and one, he found his
wife sitting by her bedroom fire in the half-darkness. Evidently
contemplation had overtaken her in the act of undressing, for her hair
was still untouched, her silk bodice lay beside her on the floor where
she had let it fall, and she sat robed in her long dressing-gown. He came
up to her, holding his candle so that the light fell full on her face; it
looked strange and pale against the vivid scarlet of her gown. Her eyes,
too, were dim, her mouth had lost its delicate outline, her cheeks seemed
to have grown slightly, ever so slightly, fuller, and the skin looked
glazed as if by the courses of many tears. He had noticed these changes
before; of late they had come many times in the twelve hours; but
to-night it seemed not so much a momentary disfigurement as a sudden
precocious maturity, as if nature had stamped her face with the image of
what it would be ten, fifteen years hence. And as he looked at her a cold
and subtle pang went through him, a curious abominable sensation, mingled
with a sort of spiritual pain. He dared not give a name to the one
feeling, but the other he easily recognized as self-reproach. He had
known it once or twice before.
He stooped over her and kissed her. "Why are you sitting up here and
crying, all by your little self?"
She shook her head.
"What are you crying about? You didn't suppose I was angry with you?"
"No. I wouldn't have cried if you had been angry. I'm not crying now.
I don't know why I cried at all. I'm tired, or cold, or something."
"Why don't you go to bed, then?"
"I'm going." She rose wearily and went to the dressing-table. He watched
her reflection in the looking-glass. As she raised her arms to take the
pins from her hair, her white face grew whiter, it was deadly white. He
went to her help, unpinning the black coils, smoothing them and plaiting
them in a loose braid. He did it in a business-like way, as if he had
been a hairdresser, he whose pulse used to beat faster if he so much as
touched her gown. Then he gave her a cold business-like kiss that left
her sadder than before. The fact was, he had thought she was going to
faint. But Mrs. Nevill Tyson was not of the fainting kind; she was only
tired, tired and sick.
It was arranged that Tyson was to leave by the two o'clock train the next
day. He was packing up his things about noon, when Molly staggered into
his dressing-room with her teeth chattering. Clinging to the rail of the
bedstead for support, she gazed at the preparations for his departure.
"I wish you wouldn't go away, Nevill," she said.
"It's all right, I'll be back in a day or two." He blushed at his own
lie.
Mrs. Nevill Tyson sat down on the bed and began to cry.
"What's the matter, Moll, eh?"
"I don't know, I don't know," she sobbed. "I'm afraid, Nevill--I'm so
terribly afraid."
"Why, what are you afraid of?" He looked up and was touched by the terror
in her face.
"I don't know. But I can bear it--I won't be silly and frightened--I can
bear it if you'll only stay."
She slid on to her knees beside him; and while she implored him to stay,
her hands worked unconsciously, helping him to go--smoothing and folding
his clothes, and laying them in little heaps about the floor, her figure
swaying unsteadily as she knelt.
He put his arm round her; he drew her head against his shoulder; and she
looked up into his face, trying to smile.
"You won't leave me?" she whispered hoarsely.
He laid his hand upon her forehead. It was damp with the first sweat of
her agony.
He carried her to her room and sent for Mrs. Wilcox and the doctor and
the nurse. Then he went back and began turning the things in and out of
his portmanteau in a melancholy, undecided manner. Mrs. Wilcox came and
found him doing it.
"I'm not going," he said in answer to her indignant stare.
"I'm glad to hear it. Because if you _do_ go--"
"I am not going."
But Mrs. Wilcox's maternal instinct had subdued her fear of Nevill Tyson,
and he respected her defiance even more than he had respected her fear.
"If you go you'll put her in a fever, and _I_ won't answer for the
consequences."
He said nothing, for he had a sense of justice, and it was her hour.
Besides, he was no little conscience-stricken.
He went out to look for Stanistreet, and found him in the courtyard,
piling his own luggage on the dog-cart. He put his hand on his shoulder.
"Look here," said he, "I can't go. It's a damned nuisance, but it's out
of the question. Leave those things till to-morrow."
"To-morrow?" Stanistreet stared vaguely at his host.
"Yes; you must see me through this, Stanny. I can't trust myself by
myself. For God's sake let's go and do something, or I'll go off my
head."
They spent the afternoon in the low coverts about the Toft, and the
evening in the billiard-room, sitting forlornly over whiskey-and-soda.
A peculiar throbbing silence and mystery seemed to hang about the house.
Stanistreet was depressed and hardly spoke, while Tyson vainly tried to
hide his nervousness under a fictitious jocularity. He looked eagerly for
the night, by which time he had concluded that all anxiety would be
ended. But when ten o'clock came and he found that nothing more nor less
than a long night-watch was required of him, his nerves revolted.
"I wonder how long this business is going to last? I wish to God I'd
never stayed." He leaned back against the chimney-piece, grinding his
heels on the fender in his irritation. "I was a fool not to get away in
the morning when I had the chance."
He looked up and saw Stanistreet regarding him with a curiously critical
expression. Louis did not look very like sitting up all night; his lean
face was haggard already.
"I say, Stanistreet, it's awfully good of you to stop like this. I'm
confoundedly sorry I asked you to. I don't know how we're going to get
through the night." He cast a glance at the billiard-table. "Pity we
can't knock the balls about a bit--but you see they'd hear us, and she
might think it a little cold-blooded."
"My dear fellow, I'm ready to sit up with you till any time in the
morning, and I never felt less like billiards in my life."
"Then there's nothing for it that I can see but a mighty smoke--it'll
soothe our nerves any way. And a mighty drink--we shall need it, you
bet."
He rang the bell, lit his first cigar, and settled himself for his watch.
His irritation was still sullenly fermenting; for not only was he going
to spend a disagreeable night, but he had been most inconsiderately
balked of a pleasant one.
"It's inconceivable," said he, "the things women expect you to do. If I
could do her the smallest good by stopping I wouldn't complain. But I
can't see her, can't go near her, can't do her the least bit of good in
the world--I would be better out of the way, in fact--and yet I have to
stick here, fretting myself into a fever. If I didn't do it I should be
an unfeeling, heartless, disgusting brute. See? That's the way they
reason."
Presently, under the soothing influence of the cigar, he settled down
into some semblance of his former self. He talked almost as well as
usual, touching on such light local topics as Miss Batchelor and the new
Parish Council; he told Mrs. Nevill's barrister story with variations,
and that landed him in a discussion of his plans. "I very much doubt
whether I shall die a country gentleman after all. It isn't the life for
me. That old man's respectability was ideal--transcendental--it's too
much for me. I don't know why he left it to me. Sheer cussedness, I
suppose. It would have been just like him if he had left me his
immortality, on the condition that I should spend it at Drayton Parva. I
couldn't stand that. I don't even know if I can stand another year of it.
I shall be dragged to the center again some of these days. It must come.
As it is, I'm a rag of a human moth fluttering round the lamps of town."
"Fate," said Stanistreet.
"Not at all. If I go, it'll be chance that takes me--pure chance."
"Don't see much difference myself."
"There's all the difference. Ask any man who's been chivied about to all
the ends of the earth and back again. He can tell you something about,
chance, but I doubt if he swears much by fate. Chance--oh Lord, don't I
know it!--chance takes you up and plays with you, pleases you or teases
you, and drops you when she's tired of you. Like--some ladies of our
acquaintance, and you're none the worse for it, not you! Fate looks
devilish well after you, loves you or hates you, and in either case
sticks to you and ruins you. Like your wife. To complete the little
allegory, you can have as many chances as you like, but only one fate.
Needless to say, though my chances have been many and charming, I
naturally prefer my--fate."
Tyson was a master of the graceful art of symbolism, and Stanistreet had
caught the trick from him. At the present moment he would have given a
great deal to know how much of all this was a mere playing with words.
There was a sound of hurrying feet in the room upstairs, and the two men
held their breath. Tyson was the first to recover.
"Good God, Stanistreet, how white you are! I wish I hadn't let you in for
this. I'm not in the least nervous myself, you know. She's all right.
Thompson says so. I'm awfully sorry for the poor little soul, but if
you come to think of it, it's the most natural and ordinary thing in the
world."
But Stanistreet's thoughts were back in yesterday. He could see nothing,
think of nothing but the little figure going through the doorway, and
laughing as it went.
"Do you mind not talking about it?" said he.
Tyson sat quiet for a while, except when some obscure movement overhead
roused him from his philosophic calm. Towards midnight Mrs. Wilcox came
to the door and spoke to him for a minute. After that he became
thoughtful. "I don't quite like the look of it," said he; "he's sent for
Baker of Drayton--I suppose it means that the idiot has just sense enough
not to trust his own judgment. But I don't like it."
By the time he had struck another attitude, lit another cigar, and gulped
down another tumbler of whiskey-and-soda, philosophic calm gave way to
philosophic doubt. "I don't know who has the management of these things,
but what I want to know is--why do they make women like that? Is it
justice? Is it even common decency? What do you think?"
Stanistreet moved impatiently. "I don't think. I've no opinion on the
subject. And I never interfere between a man and his Maker--it's bad
form. They must settle it between them."
"It's all very well to be so infernally polite. But this sort of thing
wakes you up impolitely, and makes you ask impolite questions. I suppose
I've seen men die by dozens--so have you--seen them die as if they
enjoyed it, and seen them foaming at the mouth, kicking against
death--and I can't say it particularly staggered my belief in my Maker.
But when it comes to the women, somehow it seems more polite not to
believe in him than to believe that he does these damnable things on
purpose."
Stanistreet closed his eyes to shut out the sight of Tyson and his
eternal cigar, and the slow monotonous movement of his lips. His friend's
theological views were not exactly the supreme interest of the moment.
"Down there in the desert" (Tyson seemed to dream as he raised his eyes
to the great map of the Soudan that hung above the chimney-piece), "where
there's no end to the sand and the sky, and man's nothing and woman less
than nothing, this curious belief in the infinite seems the natural
thing; it simply possesses you. You know the feeling? But here it gets
crowded out somehow; it's too big for these little houses we've got to
live in, and work in, and die in. It's beastly business thinking, though.
I fancy old Tennyson got very near the mark--
"'Perplexed in faith, but _pure in deeds_.
At last he beat his music out;
There lives more faith in honest doubt,
Believe me, than in half--'"
There was a sharp bitter cry, stifled in the instant of its utterance,
and Tyson started to his feet. His mouth worked convulsively. "My God!
I don't care who's responsible for this filthy world. Nobody but a fiend
could take that little thing and torture her so. Think of it, Louis!"
"I'm trying not to think of it. It's damnable as you say, but--other
women have to stand it."
"Other women!" Tyson flung the words out like an execration that throbbed
with his scorn and loathing of the sex. Other women! By an act of his
will he had put his wife on a high pedestal for the moment--made her
shine, for the moment, white and fair above the contemptible herd, her
obscure multitudinous sisterhood. Other women! The phrase had an
undertone of dull passionate self-reproach that was distinctly audible
to Stanistreet's finer ear. Stanistreet knew many things about
Tyson--knew, for instance, the cause that but for this would have taken
him up to town; and Tyson knew that he knew.
If it came to that, Stanistreet too had some grounds for self-reproach.
He took up a book and tried to read; but the words reeled and staggered
and grew dim before him; he found himself listening to the ticking of the
clock, and the pulse of time became a woman's heart beating violently
with pain, a heart indistinguishable from his own. Other women (it was he
who had used the words)--was it simply by her share in their grim lot
that Mrs. Nevill Tyson had contrived to invest herself with this somber
significance? Perhaps. It was the same woman that he had driven with,
laughed with, flirted with a hundred times--the woman that in the natural
course of things (Tyson apart) he would infallibly have made love to; and
yet in one day and one night her prettinesses, her impertinences had
fallen from her like a frivolous garment, leaving only the simple eternal
lines of her womanhood. Henceforth, whatever he might think, he would not
think of her to-morrow as he had thought yesterday; whatever he felt
to-morrow, his feeling would never lose that purifying touch of tragic
pity. Mrs. Nevill Tyson would never be the same woman that he had known
before. And yet--she was a fool, a fool; and he doubted if her sufferings
would make her any wiser.
Tyson looked at his watch. "Look there, Stanistreet, it's two
o'clock--there must be some blundering. I'll speak to Baker. What are
those damned doctors thinking of! Why can't they have done with it? Why
can't they put her under chloroform?"
One by one the lamps over the billiard-table died down and went out; the
firelight leapt and started on the wall, making the gloom of the great
room visible; in the half-darkness Tyson became clairvoyant, and his
self-reproach grew dominant and clamorous. "It's all my fault--if she
dies it'll be my fault! But how was I to know? How could I tell that
anything like this would happen? I swear I'd die rather than let her go
through this villainy a second time. It's infamous--I'll kill myself
before it happens again!" He flung himself on the sofa and turned his
face to the wall, muttering invectives, blasphemies--a confused furious
arraignment of the finite and the Infinite.
At three o'clock the doctors sent for him. When he came back he was very
silent. He lay down again quietly, and from time to time his lips moved,
whether in imprecation or prayer it was hard to say; but it struck
Stanistreet that Tyson's mind had veered again to the orthodoxy of
terror.
There was silence overhead too. They were putting her under chloroform.
Another hour and the window-panes glimmered as if a tissue of liquid air
were spread between them and the darkness. There was a break in the night
outside, a livid streak of dawn; the objects in the room took curious
unintelligible shapes, the billiard-table in its white cloth became a
monstrous bed, a bier, a gleaming mausoleum. And with the dawn Tyson on
his sofa had dropped into a doze, and thence into a sleep. The night's
orgy of emotion had left his features in a curious moral disarray; once
or twice a sort of bubbling murmur rose to his lips. "Poor devil!"
thought Stanistreet, "I'd give anything to know how much he really
cared."
Stanistreet still watched. Mrs. Wilcox found him sitting bent forward,
with his elbows on his knees and his face hidden in his hands. He was
roused by her touch on his shoulder. He started when he saw her standing
over him, a strange figure in the dull light. She was clad in a long gray
dressing-gown, her hair uncurled, red rims round her eyes and dark
streaks under them, her mouth swollen and trembling. That night had been
a rude shock to her optimism.
Stanistreet never knew how he became possessed of her plump hand, nor
what he did with it. His eyes looked the question he was afraid to speak.
"It's all right--all per--perfectly right," stammered the optimist. "Wake
him up, please, and tell him he has got a son."