MARY IS SHOCKED
Through fire and frost and snow
I see you go,
I see your feet that bleed,
My heart bleeds too.
I, who would give my very soul for you,
What can I do?
I cannot help your need.
That first evening was one of many others, all on very much the same
pattern. David Blake would come in, after tea, or after dinner, sit for
an hour in almost total silence, and then go away again. Every time that
he came, Elizabeth’s heart sank a little lower. This change, this
obscuring of the man she loved, was an unreality, but how some
unrealities have power to hurt us.
December brought extra work to the Market Harford doctors. There was an
epidemic of measles amongst the children, combined with one of influenza
amongst their elders. David Blake stood the extra strain but ill. He was
slipping steadily down the hill. His day’s work followed only too often
upon a broken or sleepless night, and to get through what had to be
done, or to secure some measure of sleep, he had recourse more and more
frequently to stimulant. If no patient of his ever saw him the worse for
drink, he was none the less constantly under its influence. If it did
not intoxicate him, he came to rely upon its stimulus, and to distrust
his unaided strength. He could no longer count upon his nerve, and the
fear of all that nerve failure may involve haunted him continually and
drove him down.
“Look here, Blake, you want a change. Why don’t you go away?” said Tom
Skeffington. It was a late January evening, and he had dropped in for a
smoke and a chat. “The press of work is over now, and I could very well
manage the lot for a fortnight or three weeks. Will you go?”
“No, I won’t,” said David shortly.
Young Skeffington paused. It was not much after six in the evening, and
David’s face was flushed, his hand unsteady.
“Look here, Blake,” he said, and then stopped, because David was staring
at him out of eyes that had suddenly grown suspicious.
“Well?” said David, still staring.
“Well, I should go away if I were you—go to Switzerland, do some winter
sports. Get a thorough change. Come back yourself again.”
There was ever so slight an emphasis on the last few words, and David
flashed into sudden anger.
“Mind your own business, and be damned to you, Skeffington,” he cried.
Tom Skeffington shrugged his shoulders.
“Oh, certainly,” he said, and made haste to be gone.
Blake in this mood was quite impracticable. He had no mind for a scene.
David sat on, with a tumbler at his elbow. So they wanted him out of the
way. That was the third person who had told him he needed a change—the
third in one week. Edward was one, and old Dr. Bull, and now
Skeffington. Yes, of course, Skeffington would like him out of the way,
so as to get all the practice into his own hands. Edward too. Was it
this morning, or yesterday morning, that Edward had asked him when he
was going to take a holiday? Now he came to think of it, it was
yesterday morning. And he supposed that Edward wanted him out of the way
too. Perhaps he went too often to Edward’s house. David began to get
angry. Edward was an ungrateful hound. “Damned ungrateful,” said David’s
muddled brain. The idea of going to see Mary began to present itself to
him. If Edward did not like it, Edward could lump it. He had been told
to come whenever he liked. Very well, he liked now. Why shouldn’t he?
He got up and went out into the cold. Then, when he was half-way up the
High Street he remembered that Edward had gone away for a couple of
days. It occurred to him as a very agreeable circumstance. Mary would be
alone, and they would have a pleasant, friendly time together. Mary
would sit in the rosy light and play to him, not to Edward, and sing in
that small sweet voice of hers—not to Edward, but to him.
It was a cold, crisp night, and the frosty air heightened the effect of
the stimulant which he had taken. He had left his own house flushed,
irritable, and warm, but he arrived at the Mottisfonts’ as unmistakably
drunk as a man may be who is still upon his legs.
He brushed past Markham in the hall before she had time to do more than
notice that his manner was rather odd, and she called after him that
Mrs. Mottisfont was in the drawing-room.
David went up the stairs walking quite steadily, but his brain, under
the influence of one idea, appeared to work in a manner entirely
divorced from any volition of his.
Mary was sitting before the fire, in the rosy glow of his imagining. She
wore a dim purple gown, with a border of soft dark fur. A book lay upon
her lap, but she was not reading. Her head, with its dark curls, rested
against the rose-patterned chintz of the chair. Her skin was as white as
a white rose leaf. Her lips as softly red as real red roses. A little
amethyst heart hung low upon her bosom and caught the light. There was a
bunch of violets at her waist. The room was sweet with them.
Mary looked up half startled as David Blake came in. He shut the door
behind him, with a push, and she was startled outright when she saw his
face. He looked at her with glazed eyes, and smiled a meaningless and
foolish smile.
“Edward is out,” said Mary, “he is away.” And then she wished that she
had said anything else. She looked at the bell, and wondered where
Elizabeth was. Elizabeth had said something about going out—one of her
sick people.
“Yes—out,” said David, still smiling. “That’s why I’ve come. He’s
out—Edward’s out—gone away. You’ll play to me—not to Edward—to-night.
You’ll sit in this nice pink light and—play to me, won’t you—Mary dear?”
The words slipped into one another, tripped, jostled, and came with a
run.
David advanced across the room, moving with caution, and putting each
foot down slowly and carefully. His irritability had vanished. He felt
instead a pleasant sense of warmth and satisfaction. He let himself sink
into a chair and gazed at Mary.
“Le’s sit down—and have nice long talk,” he said in an odd, thick voice;
“we haven’t had—nice long talk—for months. Le’s talk now.”
Mary began to tremble. Except in the streets, she had never seen a man
drunk before, and even in the streets, passing by on the other side of
the road, under safe protection, and with head averted, she had felt
sick and terrified. What she felt now she hardly knew. She looked at the
bell. She would have to pass quite close to David before she could reach
it. Elizabeth—she might ring and ask if Elizabeth had come in. Yes, she
might do that. She made a step forward, but as she reached to touch the
bell, David leaned sideways, with a sudden heavy jerk, and caught her by
the wrist.
“What’s that for?” he asked.
Suspicion roused in him again, and he frowned as he spoke. His face was
very red, and his eyes looked black. Mary had cried out, when he caught
her wrist. Now, as he continued to hold it, she stared at him in
helpless silence. Then quite suddenly she burst into hysterical tears.
“Let me go—oh, let me go! Go away, you’re not fit to be here! You’re
drunk. Let me go at once! How dare you?”
David continued to hold her wrist, not of any set purpose, but stupidly.
He seemed to have forgotten to let it go. The heat and pressure of his
hand, his slow vacant stare, terrified Mary out of all self-control. She
tried to pull her hand away, and as David’s clasp tightened, and she
felt her own helplessness, she screamed aloud, and almost as she did so
the door opened sharply and Elizabeth Chantrey came into the room. She
wore a long green coat, and dark furs, and her colour was bright and
clear with exercise. For one startled second she stood just inside the
room, with her hand upon the door. Then, as she made a step forward,
David relaxed his grasp, and Mary, wrenching her hand away, ran sobbing
to meet her sister.
“Oh, Liz! Oh, Liz!” she cried.
Elizabeth was cold to the very heart. David’s face—the heavy, animal
look upon it—and Mary’s frightened pallor, the terror in her eyes. What
had happened?
She caught Mary by the arm.
“What is it?”
“He held me—he wouldn’t let me go. He caught my wrist when I was going
to ring the bell, and held it. Make him go away, Liz.”
Elizabeth drew a long breath of relief. She scarcely knew what she had
feared, but she felt suddenly as if an intolerable weight had been
lifted from her mind. The removal of this weight set her free to think
and act.
“Molly, hush! Do you hear me, hush! Pull yourself together! Do you know
I heard you scream half-way up the stairs? Do you want the servants to
hear too?”
She spoke in low, rapid tones, and Mary caught her breath like a child.
“But he’s tipsy, Liz. Oh, Liz, make him go away,” she whispered.
David had got upon his feet. He was looking at the two women with a
puzzled frown.
“What’s the matter?” he said slowly, and Mary turned on him with a
sudden spurt of temper.
“I wonder you’re not ashamed,” she said in rather a trembling voice. “I
do wonder you’re not—and will you please go away at once, or do you want
the servants to come in, and every one to know how disgracefully you
have behaved?”
“Molly, hush!” said Elizabeth again.
Her own colour died away, leaving her very pale. Her eyes were fixed on
David with a look between pity and appeal. She left Mary and went to
him.
“David,” she said, putting her hand on his arm, “won’t you go home now?
It’s getting late. It’s nearly dinner time, and I’m afraid we can’t ask
you to stay to-night.”
Something in her manner sobered David a little. Mary had screamed—why?
What had he said to her—or done? She was angry. Why? Why did Elizabeth
look at him like that? His mind was very much confused. Amid the
confusion an idea presented itself to him. They thought that he was
drunk. Well, he would show them, he would show them that he was not
drunk. He stood for a moment endeavouring to bring the confusion of his
brain into something like order. Then without a word he walked past
Mary, and out of the room, walking quite steadily because a sober man
walks steadily and he had to show them that he was sober.
Mary stood by the door listening. “Liz,” she whispered, “he hasn’t gone
down-stairs.” Her terror returned. “Oh, what is he doing? He has gone
down the passage to Edward’s room. Oh, do you think he’s safe? Liz, ring
the bell—do ring the bell.”
Elizabeth shook her head. She came forward and put her hand on Mary’s
shoulder.
“No, Molly, it’s all right,” she said. She, too, listened, but Mary
broke in on the silence with half a sob.
“You don’t know how he frightened me. You don’t know how dreadful he
was—like a great stupid animal. Oh, I don’t know how he dared to come to
me like that. And my wrist aches still, it does, indeed. Oh! Liz, he’s
coming back.”
They heard his steps coming along the passage, heavy, deliberate steps.
Mary moved quickly away from the door, but Elizabeth stood still, and
David Blake touched her dress as he came back into the room and shut the
door behind him. His hair was wet from a liberal application of cold
water. His face was less flushed and his eyes had lost the vacant look.
He was obviously making a very great effort, and as obviously Mary had
no intention of responding to it. She stood and looked at him, and
ceased to be afraid. This was not the stranger who had frightened her.
This was David Blake again, the man whom she could play upon, and
control. The fright in her eyes gave place to a dancing spark of anger.
“I thought I asked you to go away,” she said, and David winced at the
coldness of her voice.
“Will you please go?”
“Mary——”
“If you want to apologise you can do so later—when you are _fit_,” said
Mary, her brows arched over very scornful eyes.
David was still making a great effort at self-control. He had turned
quite white, and his eyes had rather a dazed look.
“Mary, don’t,” he said, and there was so much pain in his voice that
Elizabeth made a half step towards him, and then stopped, because it was
not any comfort of hers that he desired.
Mary’s temper was up, and she was not to be checked. She meant to have
her say, and if it hurt David, why, so much the better. He had given her
a most dreadful fright, and he deserved to be hurt. It would be very
good for him. Anger reinforced by a high moral motive is indeed a potent
weapon. Mary wielded it unmercifully.
“Don’t—don’t,” she said. “Oh, of course not. You behave
disgracefully—you take advantage of Edward’s being away—you come here
drunk—and I’m not to say a word——”
Her eyes sparkled, and her head was high. She gave a little angry laugh,
and turned towards the bell.
“Will you go, please, or must I ring for Markham?”
At her movement, and the sound of her laughter, David’s self-control
gave way, suddenly and completely. The blood rushed violently to his
head. He took a long step towards her, and she stopped where she was in
sheer terror.
“You laugh,” he said, in a low tone of concentrated passion—“you
laugh——”
Then his voice leaped into fury. “I’ve sold my soul for you, and you
laugh. I’m in hell for you, and you laugh. I’m drunk, and you laugh. My
God, for that at least you shall never laugh at me again. By God, you
shan’t——”
He stood over her for a moment, looking down on her with terrible eyes.
Then he turned and went stumbling to the door, and so out, and, in the
dead silence that followed, they heard the heavy front door swing to
behind him.
Mary was clinging to a chair.
“Oh, Liz,” she whispered faintly, but Elizabeth turned and went out of
the room without a single word.