[Illustration: 9095]
HE fourth night he was there again. By this time everything in the
house, from the kettle in the kitchen to the carpet on the topmost
landing, was aware that a one-armed man was hidden beneath the trees
across the road, watching. The whole house was on the alert, listening
and waiting--everybody, that is to say, except the people most
concerned, who inhabited us. It seemed strange that they alone should be
in ignorance. The grandfather clock did his best to tell them. “Beware;
take care. Beware; take care,” he ticked as his pendulum swung to and
fro. They stared him in the face and read the time by his hands, but
they had no idea what he was saying.
What could it be that the watching man wanted? Whatever it was, he
wanted it badly, for it was by no means pleasant to stand motionless for
several hours when the November chill was in the air. Nor did he seem
to find it pleasant, for every now and then he coughed and shook himself
like a dog inside his coat, and sunk his chin deeper into his collar.
He had been there since six o'clock. He had seen the cook and the
housemaid come up the area-steps and meet their respective sweethearts
under the arc-light at the end of the square. There was only one other
grown person in the house beside the little lady--Nurse; and Nurse had
been in bed since the afternoon with a sick headache. He could not have
known that. It was at precisely eight that he consulted his luminous
wrist-watch, crossed the road, hesitated and raised the knocker very
determinedly, as if he had only just arrived and had not much time to
spare. _Rat-tat-tat!_ The sound echoed alarmingly through the silence.
The little lady dropped her sewing in her lap and listened. The sound
was repeated. _Rat-tat-tat!_ It seemed to say, “Come along. Don't keep
me waiting. You've got to let me in sooner or later. You know that.”
“It can't be the postman at this hour,” she murmured, “and yet it sounds
like his knock.”
Laying her work on the table beneath the lamp, she rose from her chair
and descended. She opened the door only a little way at first, just wide
enough for her to peer out, so that she could close it again if she saw
anything disturbing.
“So you do live here!” The man outside spoke gladly. “I guessed it could
be no one else the moment I saw that the house was no longer empty.”
She opened the door a few more inches. His tone puzzled her by its
familiarity. His face had not yet come into the ray of light which
slanted from the hall across the steps.
“You don't recognise me?” he questioned. “I called to let you know that
I did fetch that taxi. It's been on my mind that you thought I deserted
you. Taxi-cabs were hard to find in an air-raid.”
She flung the door wide. “Why it's----”
She didn't know how to call him--how to put what he was into words. He
had been simply “the American officer”--that was how she had named him
in talking with the children. He had been often remembered, especially
during the fireside hour when in imaginary adventures he had been the
hero of many stories. How brave she had made him and how often she had
feared that he was dead! There were other stories which she had told
only to herself, when the children were asleep and the house was silent.
And there he stood on the threshold, with the same gallant bearing and
the same eager smile playing about his mouth. “I've always been loved
and trusted; you love and trust me, too”--that was what his smile was
saying to her.
Her heart was beating wildly; but nothing of what she felt expressed
itself in what she said. “I'm by myself. I've let the maids go out. I'm
terribly apologetic for having treated you so suspiciously.”
He laughed and stepped into the hall. “I seem fated to find you by
yourself; you were alone last time. I'm in hospital and have to be back
by ten. Won't you let me sit with you for half an hour?”
He had begun to remove his top-coat awkwardly. His awkwardness attracted
her attention.
“Please let me do that for you.”
“Oh, I'm learning to manage. It's all right.... Well, if you must.
Thanks.” She didn't dare trust herself. There was a pricking sensation
behind her eyes. She motioned to him to go first. As she followed him
up the stairs, she gazed fixedly at his flattened left side, where the
sleeve was tucked limply into the tunic-pocket. She knew that when she
was again face to face with him she must pretend not to have noticed.
He entered the room and stood staring round. “The same old room! But it
didn't belong to you then. How did you manage it?”
“Easily, but not on purpose.”
“Truly, not on purpose?” His tone was disappointed.
“No, not on purpose. I didn't know the name of the square or the number
of the house that night. I stumbled on it months later by accident. It
was still to let.”
“So you took it? Why did you take it?”
“Because I'd liked it from the first and it suited me,” she smiled. “Why
else?”
“I thought perhaps...”
“Well, say it. You're just like Robbie. When Robbie wants to tell me
something that's difficult, he has a special place against which he
hides his face; it's easier to tell me there. You men are all such
little boys. If it's difficult to tell, you do the same and say it
without looking at me.”
She reseated herself beneath the lamp and took up her sewing. “Now tell
me, why did you want me to say that I took it on purpose?”
“I don't quite know. Perhaps it was because, had I been you, I should
have taken it on purpose. One likes to live in places where he has been
happy, even though the happiness lasted only for an hour.”
He wandered over to the couch before the fire and sat down where he
could watch her profile and the slope of her throat beneath the lamp.
The only sound was the prick of the needle and the quiet pulling through
of the thread. It had all happened just as he would have planned it. He
was glad that she was alone. He was glad that it was in this same room
that they had met. He was glad in a curious unreasoning way for the
faint fragrance of Jacqueminot that surrounded her. It had been just
like this at the Front that he had thought of her--thought of her so
intensely that he had almost caught the scent and the rustle of her
dress, moving towards him through the squalor of the trench. Through all
the horror the brief memory of her gentleness had remained with him. And
what hopes he had built on that memory! He had told himself that, if he
survived, by hook or by crook he would search her out. In hospital, when
he had returned to England, all his impatience to get well had been to
get to her. In his heart he had never expected success. The task had
seemed too stupendous. And now here he was, sitting with her alone, the
house all quiet, the fire shining, the lamp making a pool of gold among
the shadows, and she, most quiet of all, taking him comfortably for
granted and carrying on with her woman's work. At last he was at rest;
not in love with her, he told himself, but at rest.
It was she who broke the silence. “How did you know? What made you come
so directly to this house?”
He met her eyes and smiled. “Where else was there to come? It was the
one place we both knew. I took a chance at it.” And then, after a
pause, “No, that's not quite true. I was sent up to London for special
treatment. The first evening I was allowed out of hospital, I hurried
here and, finding that our empty house was occupied, stayed outside to
watch it.”
“But why to watch it?”
“Because it was a million to one that you weren't the tenant. Before I
rang the bell I wanted to make certain. You see I don't know your name;
I couldn't ask to see the lady of the house. If she hadn't been you, how
could I have explained my intrusion?”
“And then you made certain?”
He nodded. “You came to the window on Armistice night and stood for a
few minutes looking out.”
“I remember.” She shivered as if a cold breath had struck her. “I was
feeling stupid and lonely; all the world out there in the darkness
seemed so glad. I wish you had rung my bell. That was three nights ago.”
“You mean why did I let three nights go by. I guess because I was a
coward. I got what we call in America 'cold feet.' I thought...”
He waited for her to prompt him. She sat leaning forward, her hands
lying idle in her lap. He noticed, as he had noticed nearly a year
ago, the half-moon that her shoulders made in the dimness. She was
extraordinarily motionless; her motionlessness gave her an atmosphere
of strength. When she moved her gestures said as much as words. Nothing
that she did was hurried.
“Tell me what you thought.” she said quietly. She spoke to him as she
would have spoken to Robbie, making him feel very young and little. When
she spoke like that there was not much that he would not have told her.
“I thought that you might not remember me or want to see me. We met so
oddly; after the lapse of a year you might easily have regarded my call
as an impertinence.”
“An impertinence!” There were tears in her eyes when she raised her
head. “You lost your arm that I and my children might be safe, and you
talk about impertinence.”
“Oh, that!” He glanced down at his empty sleeve. “That's nothing. It's
the luck of the game and might have happened to anybody.”
“But you lost it for me,” she re-asserted, “that I might be safe. You
must have suffered terribly.”
Seeing her distress, he laughed gaily. “Losing an arm wasn't the worst
that might have happened. I'm one of the fortunate ones; I'm still above
ground. The thing wasn't very painful--nothing is when you've simply got
to face it. It's the thinking about pain that hurts.... Hulloa, look
at the time; I can just get back to the hospital by ten. If we're late,
they punish us by keeping us in next night.”
At the top of the stairs as she was seeing him out, he halted and looked
back into the room. “It's quiet and cosy in there. I don't want
to leave; I feel like a boy being packed off to school. You can't
understand how wonderful it is after all the marching and rough times
and being cut about to be allowed to sit by a fire with a woman. I loved
to watch you at your sewing.”
“It's because you're tired,” she said, “more tired than you know. You
must come very often and rest.”