News had come; and it was bad news. Except that it conveyed
desolation instead of comfort, she did not yet fully understand the
long cablegram from Twining. Its one salient statement had been a
blow sufficiently cruel to strike her down.
Twining had returned to Hobart in the relief ship. He had
returned--without Dyke. He had brought back other people--but not
Dyke.
The message had many map references, and she immediately recognised
the first one--in Latitude seventy-seven degrees, forty minutes,
south. That, of course, was Dyke’s base camp on the Barrier,
near the place from which Captain Scott started. So it had been
arranged. He was to follow Captain Scott’s line. He said it was a
duty to the dead--to carry on the work.
Naturally it was to that point that Twining would go, to succour
and relieve. The message said:--
“...Have taken away everybody from there. The large party
that Dyke took with him all safe back. They left him Latitude
eighty-five degrees south. Dyke going on with two.”
Emmie’s teeth, with retracted lips, began to chatter, and she
repeated the words in a whisper. “Dyke going on--Dyke going on
with two.”
“I did not meet the _Follower_. As ordered by Dyke, _Follower_
sailed October last for coast-line Latitude seventy-three degrees
south, Longitude twenty degrees west of Greenwich. Gladstone
instructed to make food depôts from Latitude seventy-four south,
Longitude twenty-two west, to as far south as possible and to
meet Dyke. Am refitting in haste to start for _Follower’s_ new
station.”
Twining had not seen Dyke’s own ship, the _Follower_. The
_Follower_ was gone--somewhere else. Why? She could not understand.
And what was the significance of that instruction to make more
food depôts, when all depôts were already provided? On the supply
of food from the base camp southwards depended all the security of
Dyke’s return journey from the Pole. Was there something wrong with
the carefully planned arrangements? Surely this must mean that he
intended to come from the Pole by a slightly different line? But
then--oh, the danger, the horrible danger of altered plans.
Twining had broken up the original base camp; he had taken
everybody away. It could have only one meaning: that Dyke was not
coming back exactly the same way that he had gone. It could not
mean--no, a thousand times no--that he had been so long that they
did not expect him back at all? No, they expected him at this other
place. They were to meet him there.
She fell into a fit of shivering as the thought came to her that
all this had happened months ago. Twining was speaking of events
that were over, done with, for ever. Already Dyke’s journey was a
thing of the past. At this hour Dyke and those two were safe, quite
out of danger, or--
She threw herself face downwards on the bed, writhing and moaning.
Then after a while she set to work with the map again; trying to
locate accurately that last map reference and find the exact point
of the coast-line mentioned as the place of the new base camp to
be established by the _Follower_. In spite of all her training,
she was still apt to get confused in regard to Longitude. Latitude
never troubled her.
Slowly the big map turned in her hands as she followed those thin
north and south lines and the tiny numbers on the Antarctic circle;
and as if with her weak trembling hands she had pushed the world
itself round upon its axis, she stared in horror and amazement.
That point to which Dyke had ordered the _Follower_ was two
thousand miles, a long sea voyage, away from the old place. It was
right across the circle, on the opposite side of the map, facing
Cape Horn instead of Australasia. The coast-line was in Coats
Land. The new food depôts were to be made on the edge of that vast
unknown which stretches from there to the Pole without a single
mark on the map to indicate men’s guesses at the secrets that it
holds.
Then it was as if a bright light burst before her eyes, and she
shook as if an explosion had set the room and the whole house
rocking. She had understood at last the audacity and magnitude of
Dyke’s aim.
He had never intended to retrace his steps. He meant to go straight
on past the Pole, through the unknown, unguessed-at regions on that
other side, straight on, right across the circle.
Presently she was sitting on the edge of her bed, crying, and
talking aloud. “O Tony, this is too bad of you. It isn’t right.
It isn’t fair. You have broken the spirit of our agreement, if not
the letter. You knew very well that I would not have allowed it,
if I had been consulted. And you said I should be consulted--you
said my word was law--at the time I gave you the money.” She
went on talking, half hysterically, just as a mother talks when
news reaches her from a distance of a wild son’s reckless and
inexcusable behaviour; saying the things that even she, his mother,
would have been forced to say to him, had he been here within sound
of her voice. “No, Tony, I can’t, I can’t forgive you for this. You
could not have done it if you had thought of me.”
* * * * *
She went almost at once to Devonshire, in order to be with his
father during this dreadful time.
Following on that cablegram from Lieutenant Twining to the unhappy
patron and mock chieftain of the expedition, there came all sorts
of messages from press correspondents in Tasmania. But evidently
Twining had told them very little. They did not know what Emmie
knew. Soon however the name of Dyke once more became prominent in
English newspapers.
Silent and oblivious all this time, they now took him up again in
the interesting uncertainty as to his fate. The famous explorer
lost, became worth space again. Anthony Dyke missing, gone from
human ken, long over-due, was naturally more valuable than Anthony
Dyke alive and well, ready to answer our representative’s questions
at the end of a telephone wire. He took rank as a sensation that
appealed to all readers, and was featured only less conspicuously
than some Miss Jenkins, a pretty golden-haired flapper of
seventeen, who started from home to go to a cinema palace three
weeks ago and has not been seen or heard of since. A strange
disappearance! His old photographs were brought out. His whole
career was narrated--briefly, and without any intimate details that
might discount his obituary notices. These were all ready, waiting.
As the weeks passed and the view of the newspapers grew more
gloomy, their writers became more and more complimentary. They
spoke of him as “the great Englishman.” They said that even after
a war which had shown us by hundreds of instances how the fire of
patriotism can overcome the disability of age, one must yet feel
dumb with admiration as one thought of such an enterprise as this
being undertaken by a man of sixty-two. They wished they could
entertain any real hope that he would ultimately work his way back
to safety, but they must point to the adverse opinion of an expert
(in another column) who reminded one that the factors of time and
food allowed no possibility of delay. Neither seals nor birds would
be met with. And to eat the sledge dogs, when it became necessary,
meant destroying the means of rapid movement. They feared that,
at this date, there could be little doubt that the tragedy of ten
years ago had been re-enacted. Dyke and his two companions had
perished on their way back to the base. And venerable admirals,
writing in confirmation of this verdict, paid eloquent tributes and
called it a national loss.
It was a part of Emmie’s task at Endells to keep all these horrible
newspapers out of reach of the poor old man. She said it merely
lacerated one’s feelings to read them, and, as they were without
information that he and she possessed, their opinion was quite
valueless.
Twining’s letter came to her at Endells six weeks after his cabled
message. He was scarcely more hopeful than the newspapers. And a
little after this the newspapers themselves ceased to speak of
Dyke. There was no more to be said.
* * * * *
Plainly old Mr. Dyke’s bodily strength was ebbing fast. That seat
on the cliff saw them no more. It was as much as he could do to
walk to church, with the aid of Emmie’s arm. In church he sat while
others stood or kneeled; and always when the time came for the
curate to read the prayer of promise that when two or three are
gathered together in God’s name their requests will be granted,
Emmie saw his hands, and then his whole body, begin to tremble.
He used to close his eyes, and Emmie, looking down at him, saw
the deep lines on his shrunken cheeks, his veined eyelids, and
his bloodless lips, all in a sort of fluttering movement that was
produced by the rapidity of his breathing.
In the mild spring weather they drove in a little old-fashioned
phaeton with a staid old pony--Emmie driving and the old man at her
side--through the deep-sunk lanes, never on the high road, along
the sheltered valleys and sometimes high enough on the hillside to
find a point where, stopping for a few minutes to rest the pony,
they could look through the bars of a field gate across sloping
grass land to the wide calm sea. He loved these outings in the
pony carriage, and they did him good. They talked all the while of
Anthony; he as a rule telling her of incidents connected with his
son’s youth or early manhood, and she generally speaking of things
that were to be done in the future. They comforted each other as
best they could.
“As soon as he comes home, Mr. Dyke, he must help you to make the
tenants do their duty in repairing these banks. They really are
neglecting them.”
“Yes, I’ll get him to help me about that--and other matters. I am
afraid I have been negligent myself this last year. But if Tony
will settle down here, and--”
“Oh, he promised. He’ll keep his promise. He promised us both that
he would never go away again.”
For although they did not attempt to conceal the torture of
anxiety that both were suffering, neither had ever admitted even
a transient fear that their belief in his return might not be
justified. Nothing should shake her own faith, and she thought that
the old man’s faith was as firm. But then, during one of these
drives, he unconsciously allowed her to divine that it was not so.
They had been almost laughing as they spoke of the remarkable fact
that Mr. Sturgess, the doctor, had added a really new anecdote to
his repertory.
“It would have amused Tony to know that,” said Mr. Dyke.
“I will tell him in my next letter,” said Emmie.
The old man turned his thin nose and dim eyes, and looked at her in
startled wonder.
“Do you mean,” he said, “that you are still writing to him?”
“Of course I am,” she said, with a gasp. “I write every week now,
instead of once a fortnight. Naturally there will be a great many
letters--counting those that Mr. Twining had taken with him on
the _Heather Bell_. And Tony won’t get the rest till he arrives
at Hobart. But he’ll like having them, no matter how many they
are”; and she tried to smile. “He can read them--or glance through
them--on the voyage home.” Then her voice broke. “Oh, dear Mr.
Dyke, you have hurt me so dreadfully. Why did you seem surprised?
Why did you look at me like that--as if you thought it was useless
to go on writing to him?”
“My dearest Emmie, nothing of the sort.” The old fellow made a
gallant effort to speak firmly and cheerfully. “You are absolutely
right. I don’t know what I _was_ thinking about. My mind had
wandered--it does now, occasionally. Yes, tell him that Sturgess
has been to London and learnt a fresh tale. Tell him all the news.
Abertors! Don’t forget to say that Abertors has been let furnished.”
No one believed really, except her. Only she who did not dare to
doubt, contrived to go on believing. The others merely pretended.
In the village the kindly friendly little shop people assumed a
pitying expression that betrayed them at once.
“Mr. Dyke du sim poorly. Very old he is, for sure,” said Mrs.
Prince, the post-mistress, to Miss Verinder, who was buying stamps.
“A great age it is--and now what with his grief to--”
Miss Verinder, so firm as to seem stern and haughty, said that Mr.
Dyke was feeling anxiety but no grief. Why should he grieve when
there was nothing to grieve about?
“Oh, have yu a’ had good tidings, miss?” asked the post-mistress
eagerly.
“No, it is improbable that we shall have tidings of any kind
for a long time. I have told you so, again and again. Don’t you
understand that the seasons are different down there?”
“Yes, miss, so you did mention to my husband.”
“Down there the winter is beginning. The ship that has gone to
look for Mr. Anthony will encounter frozen seas. Mr. Anthony’s own
ship--unless he has already got away--will be fast in the ice. If
so, he cannot be expected at any navigable port until the autumn.”
It was just the same with those old servants at the house.
Talking to her of Master Anthony they spoke, as their master did,
nearly always of his youth. Hannah, standing with Emmie in his
dressing-room, pointed down into the walled garden and said how
when he was quite a little chap, and she herself a young girl, he
had a lovely black velvet suit with a lace collar; and wearing this
much admired costume, he lay upon the grass down there on an April
day. Then a sharp shower began; but Master Anthony, never seeming
to notice the downpour, still lay there, till he was wet through
and through. “Oh, there was a to-do, for fear he should take cold.”
Everybody in the house had loved the child.
All this was naturally put by Hannah into the past tense; but
Emmie, wincing, noticed that Hannah still used the same tense as
she went on to speak of later days, when she said how it was his
kindness, his unfailing kindness, that had won the hearts not only
of the tenants but of every man and woman for miles round.
“Yes,” said Hannah finally, with a sigh, “he was a kind gentleman.”
“He is a kind gentleman,” said Miss Verinder. “And a great hero
too. As you’ll say, when he comes home and all the world is
praising him.”
“I’m sure we do hope so, miss.”
But she knew that they merely acted hope; they had no hope, truly.
She ceased to talk to them in the friendly open way that had become
habitual. She let the house itself talk to her about him, and not
its servants.
Everything spoke of him. There was not a room that had not legends
to tell and memories to revive. Sometimes on these mornings of
early spring she went by herself into his dressing-room, and
remained there for a long while. It was a large comfortable room,
beautifully neat and clean, smelling of lavender; with two spacious
walnut wardrobes, a big writing-table, and chairs covered in
newly-washed chintz--a room that seemed to have been occupied quite
recently and to be waiting for some one to use it again to-morrow.
She opened the latticed casements more widely to let in more air
and sunlight, and stood looking down into the little garden, and
thought of him, dreamed of him. In imagination she could hear him
down below on the terrace, banging away at the cook’s box as he
and the electrician mended it--a splendid grey-haired giant, full
of power and will. In imagination she could see him moving along
the grass path between the crocuses and daffodils--a child dressed
in black velvet and white lace; a child with a man’s great soul
already developing in him, careless of rain and storm, incapable of
petty fears, daring and yet loving nature.
Sometimes she played with his things, rearranging the writing
materials in the small cabinet on the table, or she opened the
wardrobes, and fetching out the old-fashioned garments, shook them,
brushed them, refolded them. This made him seem more certainly
alive. These things were not a dead man’s property.
“But he shan’t wear them again,” she said to herself. “We’ll make a
bonfire of them. It is absurd not to have got rid of them ages ago.
I won’t have him looking as he did that last Christmas, in this
horrid little black coat. No, we’ll have a bonfire.”
At night when Mr. Dyke had gone to bed and all the house was
shuttered and barred, she sat alone by the dying embers in the
oak parlour, or stood looking into the round mirrors as if almost
expecting that they would show a reflection of something more than
emptiness behind her. She had then a feeling of vagueness and
unreality, and it seemed to her that she too was acting. What was
it all about--this tightening of the throat, this beating of the
heart, this hot dull aching of the brain? Why had she begun to pace
the room, like a tragedy queen, with clenched hands and wild eyes?
Pretence? There was no real necessity for these exaggerated poses
in order to shew an empty room and a vacant chair the ravages of
mental agony.
“Courage, Emmie. Sit down. Don’t walk about.”
Who said that? She stood listening and trembling. No one, of
course. But it was what he would have said, had he been here. The
place was not really haunted. There are no ghosts--and if there
were ghosts they must be ghosts of the dead not of the living.
No one had spoken. She had merely supplied ordinary words to an
ordinary thought.
She sat down on one side of the hearth and looked at the big deep
chair on the other side of it. She had found him sitting there that
Christmas eve long after she herself had gone upstairs, long after
midnight. She had come down again. The fire had burnt itself out,
the hearth was cold, and he was so completely lost in thought that
he did not hear her slippered footfall. She had known then that she
must let him go, that she could not keep him with her, that the
sacrifice was inevitable.
“Tony,” she had said, “this is disgraceful of you. What do you mean
by staying down here, hours after you ought to have been in bed?”
“If it comes to that,” he said, shaking off his reverie and
speaking gaily, “why haven’t you gone to bed yourself?”
And again it was as though she heard his voice, clear and distinct,
speaking to her from the empty chair in this haunted room.
* * * * *
She was sleeping very badly at this time, often hearing the church
clock strike the hours till dawn before she fell into light dozes.
Now in the middle of the night there came a knocking at the door of
her room. Startled, she called out loudly.
The door opened a little way, and the old man spoke to her.
“Emmie, forgive me. Can you get up? I have something to tell you.”
She had turned on the light, and hastily putting a cloak round
her she went to him in the corridor. He was wrapped in the loose
folds of a dressing-gown, so white and feeble a thing as seen thus,
so bony and thin, that his aspect gave her a new shock of pain.
Because of the confusion of his spirit, forgetting the electric
light, he carried a candle that was guttering and smoking in his
shaky hand.
“What’s the matter, Mr. Dyke? Are you ill?” And she took the candle
from him and blew it out.
“No, dear--not ill. But I have been thrown into great agitation by
a dream. Emmie dear, I am still under the influence of it. Help me.
It was like a vision. But dare one attach importance to it? Emmie,
it was so wonderful. I did not know I was asleep--but I suppose I
must have been.”
“Oh, Mr. Dyke, what was it?” She too was shaking now, so much that
the candle fell from its socket and rolled against the wainscoat.
“Tell me what it was.”
“Anthony,” he said.
“Yes, Anthony. I knew it”; but she clung to him. “What did you see?
What did you hear?”
“I saw him, but I could not hear anything.”
“Dead?”
“No, alive. Oh, yes, I saw him move--he raised his arm, he seemed
to hold his hand to his eyes, and then--But, Emmie, I heard
nothing. That’s what makes me so doubtful. Tell me what _you_
think. No, don’t tell me--I can’t get rid of this agitation. I
can’t think clearly.” Then it was as if the old man had suddenly
convinced himself. “Why should I doubt? He is alive. My boy, my boy
still lives. Some merciful power has sent me this message.”
“Yes, yes--that is what we will think. But, dear Mr. Dyke, you
mustn’t stay here or you will catch cold.” And with her arm round
him she led him back into his room.
He looked about him vaguely.
“Get back to bed now.”
“Yes, dear. But first I want to tell you all. I want to describe
everything, for you to remember it. He seemed to be shading his
eyes with his hand, looking forward. And when he dropped his hand
I saw the face very bright, with a very strong light upon it--like
the strongest sunshine. He wasn’t alone, Emmie. There was some one
else, on the ground by his feet. And then he seemed to be calling
out--though I couldn’t hear. Yet I seemed to understand that he was
calling to me--asking me to wait for him--or to stay with him--not
to desert him. Then, Emmie dear, though there was no sound to his
voice, I spoke myself. I called to him to be quick, because I
couldn’t wait. Then, immediately it was gone--and I felt I must go
to you.”
“Yes, yes. I’m glad you came. But now--”
“Emmie, I don’t like to ask you. Yes, I will. Pray with me a
minute. When two or three are gathered together. Would you mind?
You said once that you did believe in some universal power. Well,
will you pray to that? I don’t know if I believe in much else
myself. Everything is slipping from me.”
He sank upon his knees, and Emmie took the quilt from the bed and
held it round him, kneeling by his side while he prayed. It was
pitiful, heart-rending, the weak, weak voice quavering breathlessly
in the silent night.
“O merciful God, make this thing true. O God of mercy grant our
prayer. Have mercy on us, have mercy on us. Oh, spare my boy. Have
mercy on my brave boy. Grant to us two who love him that he may
come back to us safely.”
She got him into bed again, covered him warmly, and he feebly
pressed her hand.
“Thank you, dear Emmie. That was kind of you. Yes, when two or
three are gathered together. Very kind. But you are always kind.”
She stayed there for some time after he had fallen asleep, and then
went back to her room. She was exhausted by the agitation that had
been communicated to her; but before lying down she wrote a note
in her memorandum book. “During the night of April 18-19, Mr. Dyke
dreamed that he saw Tony,” and so on. Then, worn out, she slept
deeply, dreamlessly.
Louisa, rousing her in the morning, said that Mr. Dyke was ill and
Dr. Sturgess had been sent for.
The poor old man was light-headed, babbling confusedly, unable
to recognize Emmie or anybody else; and Dr. Sturgess told her
immediately that the illness could have but one termination.
A little more than a fortnight later she was writing to Anthony to
tell him of his loss.
“...We had Dr. Gordon Giles over from Plymouth, and two very good
nurses from Exeter. We did everything that was possible. It began
with a chill, then it was a dreadful rapid pneumonia that simply
burned him up. He had no strength to withstand the disease, and
both doctors agreed that in any case he could only have lived a
very little longer.
“You know, dear Tony, that he felt himself that his course was
nearly run. He said to me before you left that he would not be
here to welcome you home. Of course you will grieve, but you must
take consolation in thinking of his long, long life, and of all
the pride and joy that came to him from being your father. He
loved you so much. In the night when his illness began he had a
very vivid dream about you; and I shall ask you later whether you
were thinking of us at that particular time. On that same night I
had myself a strange feeling that you seemed near to us. Can it
be that, with your dear father standing on the borderland, and
the veil, as they call it, become very thin, he was indeed able
to reach you in the spirit? I wonder. You and I will talk of this.
“You know, dear Tony, that I loved him. Indeed, how could I do
anything else, when he was so good to me from the very beginning?
“I have attended to all business matters with Mr. Sadler, and
everything is all right. The house will be carried on as you
would wish, and of course none of the servants will be dismissed.
I know you would not like any petty economies to be made. You can
trust old Hannah to keep order and see that your home is ready
for you when you return to it.
“I am going back to London to-morrow.”
She shut herself in the flat, and would see no one--not loyal
Mrs. Bell clambering up those steep stairs breathlessly, not even
affectionate, grateful Mildred lightly springing up them to be
rebuffed at the guarded door again and again, not anyone at all.
She had ceased to count the months now, dreading the tale of them,
refusing to recognize their numbers. She only knew, by the warm air
and the brilliant sunbeams that sent dancing fire between the leafy
branches of the plane-tree, that it was high summer and that all
the world of the noisy streets was gay.
Reverting to an old habit, she used to go out at night, and even
then it was not dark enough to harmonise with her thoughts. Louisa
always accompanied her. They crossed the Brompton Road, seeking the
silence and darkness beside the closed churchyard, wandered through
Ennismore Gardens into Prince’s Gate; flitting like ghosts in the
grey lamp-light and vanishing in the grey shadow--like two faded
and fading ghosts that haunted the broad roads and empty spaces
which they had both known in lifetime and youth. On into Queen’s
Gate, past its largest house, shrinking from those lighted windows
and the sound of music; along the Cromwell Road, round and about
the once animated neighbourhood; to and fro--thus they did their
phantom walk, night after night.
She could not bear the sight of the daylight crowd. She felt hatred
and contempt for these thousands of well-fed comfortable people who
ate, slept, and amused themselves in mean security, while the great
men, the heroes, the Dykes of the world, were giving their noble
lives to distant peril and toil. Nothing short of an urgent call of
duty would force her to face the garish sunlight and the heartless
mob.
But such a summons came, and with Louisa she went for two days to
that town in the midlands.
They returned by an evening train, sitting side by side at a table
in the Pullman car; Emmie looking pale and well-bred, Louisa
grey-haired, solid, severe, but so well-dressed and dignified as to
seem a friend of the other lady and not her servant. No one would
have noticed them or thought about them, if they had not aroused a
little curious attention by asking for tea and eggs instead of the
table-d’hôte dinner that the rest of the passengers were devouring.
When they had finished their tea, Louisa put on spectacles and read
the _Strand Magazine_; while Miss Verinder thought of what had
happened at Upperslade Park, and of what this release might have
meant to her once, a long time ago, many, many years ago. Coming
now, it seemed like the last cruel mockery of fate.
That same night, although she was very tired, she wrote to Anthony
to tell him of this second death.
“...Dr. Wenham says that in such cases the end very often
comes like this, with haemorrhage (I do not think I have spelt
it correctly) of the brain. Poor soul, she never recovered
consciousness and she passed away quite peacefully without any
suffering. And I want to say that I am quite sure she really
loved you at first, dear Tony, and that, so far as anything like
connected thought or sustained feeling was possible to a person
in that darkened condition, she loved you to the last. She never
forgot you; she always spoke of you.
“You will be surprised at my saying all this, but I will explain
by telling you something that I have not told you till now. Only
do not for a moment suppose that I kept it back because I was
afraid you might not approve. I knew very well that you would
think it right and wish me to do it; as it was what you used to
do yourself until your work prevented you. I said nothing to you
simply because I did not want to trouble you.
“For a number of years I have been in touch with her, and have
regularly visited the asylum. Dr. Wenham seemed to think that
my visits did her good, as proving to her that there was still
somebody in the world who took an interest in her; although I
cannot say that I ever could see that she felt this. At any rate,
by going I was enabled to make sure that she was being well
treated and having good food, and so on. This, I think, you will
be glad to know. After the death of that hateful aunt of hers, it
seemed that, except you and me, there was literally nobody who
even knew of her existence.
“I will explain everything else about it when we meet.”
She continued to write to him even more often; telling him about
Louisa or the cat, telling him anything that could possibly
interest him.
“They say the price of food has fallen again, but Louisa says the
good shops are as dear as ever.... Mildred Parker is going to
be married early in September. I wish I had you here to help me
choose a present for her. I feel so dull and uninventive that I
dare say I shall sneak out of the difficulty by sending a cheque.
Mildred is a dear girl.”
After the evening walk she used to sit at her desk, with only her
reading lamp to make a bright circle of light and with all the rest
of the room in darkness. If not writing a letter to him, she read
his old letters to her. The thin paper rustled and shook in the
lamp-light; and it seemed to her that the man whom all the world
believed to be dead was standing close behind her; that at any
moment he might step forward, put his hand upon her shoulder, and
speak to her.
Did she still truly believe that he was alive? She went on writing
to him. In some oppressively hot weather during the month of August
she suffered from great lassitude; her head ached day after day,
and noises in the head bothered her. Louisa wanted her to see a
doctor, but she resolutely refused. Alone in the room, with the
sides and corners of it all vague and shadowy, where the light
of her single lamp did not reach them, she distressed herself by
imaging that she could hear voices--not his voice ever, the voices
of other people, strangers, talking about Anthony. It was not an
illusion; because she knew perfectly well that she was merely
imagining it. This imagined talk was just a translation of her own
thoughts. But she could not stop it; for a little while it was
quite beyond her control.
These unknown imaginary people were saying that he was alive and
they had seen him. They had met him in Bond Street. “Yes, I didn’t
recognize him at first. I thought, there’s a thundering big man.
Where have I seen those big shoulders before? Then I saw it was
Dyke. You know, the man they said had perished five hundred miles
on the other side of the Pole. Anthony Dyke. Dyke. Dyke. Dyke!”
And suddenly she began to laugh and beat upon the desk with her
open hand. A thought had come to her that seemed to be at once
tragic and ludicrous. “Am I going mad?” she asked herself; and for
perhaps a minute she laughed unrestrainedly. “That would be too
bad,” she said, aloud. “No, I won’t go out of my mind, Tony. It
wouldn’t be fair--for you to have had a mad mistress as well as a
mad wife”; and she became quite quiet again. Then, looking round,
she saw that Louisa had entered the room.
“I’ve nothing to do,” said Louisa. “May I sit in here with you till
you go to bed?”
“No,” said Emmie. “Leave me alone, please.”
“I fancied I heard something--as if you were making a noise.”
“Don’t believe what you hear,” said Emmie, with a faint smile, “and
only half that you see”; and the smile vanishing, her face became
rigid.
On another night she suddenly sprang up from her desk, hurried
across to the door, and turned on all the light switches. Every
lamp glowed and grew bright. She had been on the point of starting
a letter when an agony of horror and dread took possession of
her. She stood now clinging to the back of a chair, her teeth
chattering, her face ghastly. He was dead--while the horror lasted
she seemed, in this brightly-lit room, to have visions of him. She
saw him lying stiff on the snow, a huge black form stretched upon
the dazzling whiteness. And she saw him seated, staring at her,
with his hands clasped about his knees--like those frozen figures
in the Andes--dead now for many months.
She made no noise. She fought the hallucination, she fought the
abominable mind-destroying thoughts that had produced it; she
fought, as if for her own life and his. And gradually the horror
passed, the anguish lessened. Finally they were gone.
She sat down at the desk again, shaking and sobbing. Her tears fell
upon the paper after she had written a few words, so that she had
to tear it up and throw it away. Then, drying her eyes, she started
once more.
“...You must never leave me after this. I have your solemn
promise, have not I? I couldn’t stand any more of it, the
loneliness. I _must_ feel that when I put out my hand it will
touch you and not close upon the empty air. You must, you must
give me a few happy years after all the waiting. You said once
you could be happy with me in Devonshire--in the dear west
country that people have called the land of sunsets. That’ll seem
the right place, Tony, for _our_ sunset--I mean, the closing of
our day.
“Oh, Tony”--and she had another fit of sobbing before she could
go on writing--“God or Fate cannot mean to separate us. If you
were dead I should die too. Not by my own hand. But I simply
could not go on living without you.
“There.” She was dabbing her eyes; and after forcing back the
tears, she sniffed courageously. “You will read this and laugh
your big laugh, and make a noise of crackers with your bony
fingers, and think how cowardly and faint-hearted your little
Emmie has become. I wasn’t cowardly in the beginning, was I,
darling? It is the waiting that has worn me out and broken my
nerve. Good-night and God bless you and guard you.”
She refused now even to glance at the newspapers; she would not
look at anything that could remind her of the passing days--those
days that she dared not count. September was close upon her, and
still she went on writing to him.
Old Louisa came into the room late one night, to fetch the cat.
“Won’t you go to bed, miss?”
“No,” said Emmie, “I am busy. I have something to finish.”
“Is it so very important?” asked Louisa. “Won’t it keep?”
Emmie answered with great firmness. “No, it won’t. The mail goes
to-morrow. I am writing to Mr. Dyke.”
Louisa looked at her.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” said Emmie, wildly and
fiercely. “I tell you I’m writing to Mr. Dyke.”
“Yes, miss,” said Louisa; and she went out of the room very softly,
leaving the cat. “I’ll come back,” she whispered, on the threshold.
Emmie wrote: “Darling, it is late, and Louisa is fussing. You
know her ways. Well, I have told you all my gossip, and made it
another long letter to add to the pile you will have to wade
through. _Au revoir_, my beloved. Good-night. Good-night.”
September had come; and Mildred Parker was talking to her on the
telephone, reminding her that there would be no Miss Parker after
Thursday next, but a Mrs. Beckett instead.
Mildred spoke of the wedding arrangements, the inexhaustible
success of _The Danger Signal_, the amazing affability and good
humour of Mr. Parker.
“He monopolises Alwyn. He trots about after him and crows over him
as if Alwyn was a wonderful egg that he had laid, or a treasure
that he had pecked out of the gravel. Sometimes I can’t get near
Ally because of him. Honestly, Emmeline, he and mummy both go on
as if it was they who had found me a husband, and I ought to thank
them on my knees for finding me such a nice one.” And Emmie heard
the girl’s fresh young laughter.
Then Mildred spoke seriously and with intense affection. She said
she knew quite well that Emmeline had some great sorrow, and it had
almost broken her heart to be stopped always by that inexorable
door, and never once to be allowed to give a hug of sympathy. She
was thinking of Emmeline constantly. She hoped and prayed that
Emmeline’s private grief, whatever it might be, would presently
pass away.
“Thank you, Mildred.”
Then Mildred gave thanks for the cheque, saying she felt ashamed to
take it because it was “such a whopper.” And after that she said,
although she must not urge Emmeline to come to the wedding itself,
she wondered if Emmeline would feel up to coming to a little
afternoon party at which friends would see the presents all laid
out on tables.
“No, dear. I’m afraid you must excuse me.”
“All right,” said Mildred. “Then I won’t be hateful and selfish
about it. Only I hope you do know, darling Emmeline, what a
tremendous difference it would make to us, and how dreadfully,
_dreadfully_ I miss you. I am so happy that I must not say it
spoils my happiness. No, that would be wicked, and ungrateful
too--when perhaps I really owe it all to you. But if anything
_could_ spoil it for me, it would be your absence.... One moment.
Can you hold on, please? Alwyn wants to speak to you himself.”
Then she heard the young man’s voice, deep and strong, yet very
musical; seeming to vibrate with tenderness although so firm.
“Miss Verinder, is that you? I wanted to say I feel just what
Mildrings feels. It would make all the difference in the world to
us. I must not press it, but I shall think it most awfully ripping
of you if you do come.”
She went. It was another fight with herself; but if her presence
would really give any pleasure to this girl and boy, why should she
spare her own pain?
Louisa dressed her with great care, in one of those greyish frocks
covered in transparent black lace and gauze that, except for their
length or shortness, belong to no particular age and fashion. Her
shoes, stockings and hat were of the most modern style.
“Can I wear a veil with this hat?” asked Emmie.
“I should certainly wear a veil,” said Louisa, looking at the dark
circles round her eyes, and at that something more than pallor, the
dull opaque waxenness of complexion that comes to people when for a
long time they have been deprived of sunlight.
Like all such small parties, it was a very big one. The house in
Ennismore Gardens was scarcely large enough for it. Mildred and
her future husband devoted themselves to Miss Verinder, waiting
upon her at tea, whispering the names of celebrated actors and
actresses, then leading her through the throng, and taking her
upstairs to see the lovely presents.
The presents and the long tables occupied both the back and the
front drawing-room, and all about them there was pressure and
excitement. The great majority of the guests were young people;
their bright faces glowed with life and hope. The atmosphere seemed
full of pretty, kindly thoughts. Even the stout and heavy elders
felt a stirring of sentimental memories and an over-brimming
sympathy. It was so pleasant to think of the happy young girl
about to be united, amidst the joy and satisfaction of parents and
relatives, to the honest young man that she loved.
Only here and there a matron of years pushed along the tables
anxiously and murmured to herself or a friend. “I suppose it’s
here. But I haven’t yet seen my silver and tortoise-shell pin tray.”
Then all at once Emmie heard or thought she heard voices saying
Anthony’s name. It was like that semi-illusion of the flat--the
imagined voices of strangers talking about him. “Dyke--yes, Dyke.”
These people just ahead of her were saying the words. She moved
towards them, listening.
“Yes, found by the relief party.... Yes, Dyke. Anthony Dyke, the
explorer.... Extraordinary. Given up by everybody. Risen from the
dead, as it were. If he has a wife and children, what must be their
feelings?”
She asked one of them what all this meant.
“That man Dyke has been found--alive, you know.”
“But is it a fact?” she asked quietly. “Who says so?”
They said the news had been cabled; it was in the evening papers,
at the clubs, everywhere.
She turned and took Mildred’s arm.
“Mildred, dear, I want to go home. Help me to get away quietly. A
taxi-cab.”
“Yes, at once.” Mildred, distressed and solicitous, took her down
by a back staircase. “But dear Emmeline, what is it? You’re ill.
You’re trembling--oh, you’re crying.”
“No, I’m not ill. Everything is quite all right. Only I’m a little
hysterical--for the moment.”
At the flat a cablegram was waiting for her.
“Done the trick. Coming home. Love. Tony.”