Midnight struck and still the wind raged without, while inside the house
complete silence reigned. One o'clock struck. The gale was at its
height; the noise of the wind was terrific: it swept past the lighted
window of Hallam's study and shook the glass as though something alive
were out in the storm and seeking refuge from the fury of the wind. But
the occupant of the room neither stirred nor looked round: he sat with a
book open on the table before him, and a glass at his elbow towards
which his shaking hand reached forth at regular and frequent intervals.
He had forgotten his promise to his wife, had forgotten the hour; he sat
in a semi-stupor, and took no heed of time or place. Whether he read,
and, if he did read, whether his drugged brain took hold of the sense of
the printed matter on which his eyes rested, was uncertain; but every
now and again he turned a page of the book without raising his glance
even when his hand reached out for the glass from which he drank: he
only looked up to refill the glass from a decanter on the table.
The minutes ticked on relentlessly, and the clock on the mantelpiece
chimed the half-hour after one. A light footfall descending the stairs,
so light that it could not be heard above the noise of the wind, did not
disturb the reader; nor did he appear to see when the door of the room
was pushed wider and Esme with a dressing-gown worn over her nightdress
and her hair in a heavy plait over her shoulder, stood framed in the
doorway, a shrinking slender figure, looking towards him with wide,
anguished eyes. She advanced swiftly and stood beside him and rested a
hand on his shoulder.
"Paul!" she said.
He looked up at her slowly, stupidly, his dull eyes scrutinising her, a
frown contracting his brows: then his gaze travelled to the hand on his
shoulder and stayed there. He moved his shoulder impatiently.
"What's the matter?" he said in thickened tones. "I thought you were
asleep."
"You promised that you would not be long," she said. "I waited for you.
Come to bed, Paul; it's late."
"I shan't be long," he muttered. "You'll take cold." He stared at her
deshabille. "Don't be silly, Esme; go back to bed."
"Dear." She put her hand under his arm and attempted to raise him.
"Come with me. I am afraid."
She looked frightened; her face was blanched and tense; her whole body
trembled. He stared at her, amazed. Then clumsily he got on to his
feet and stood unsteadily before her, assisted by her supporting hand.
Slowly she led him towards the door. He appeared reluctant to go with
her; and at the door he halted irresolutely and attempted, without
success, to free himself from her hold. Her grasp on his arm tightened.
"Come with me," she urged.
"I've never known you to be so foolish before," he said. "Why should a
little wind make you nervous? It blows hard often enough to have
accustomed you to it."
"I don't feel well, Paul," she pleaded. "I want you with me."
She drew him on towards the stairs. He took hold of the banister and
mounted, stumbling, and kicking against each stair in his progress. She
got him as far as the landing; but when she strove to draw him on
towards the bedroom he resisted.
"You go on," he said. "I must go down and switch off the lights?"
"Never mind the lights," she urged. "Come with me, dear."
"I must go down," he repeated with irritable obstinacy. "I won't be a
minute. Go on, and get into bed. I'll be up in a minute."
"No," she persisted, and got between him and the stairs, and put out a
hand to hinder his descent. "Stay with me, Paul, I don't want you to go
down again."
With darkening looks, and anger kindling in his resentful eyes, he
endeavoured to push past her. He shook off her hold roughly, and made a
clumsy movement forward, lurching against her heavily, with a force and
suddenness which caused her to overbalance. She threw out a hand wildly
to catch at the rail, missed it, and fell headlong down the stairs,
landing with a crash upon the floor of the hall, where she lay, an inert
and crumpled figure, with white upturned face showing deathlike in the
artificial light.
Hallam swayed forward dizzily and clutched at the rail and leaned
against it heavily.
"My God!" he muttered, and hid his eyes from the sight of the still
white face.
There came the sound of doors opening behind him. He pulled himself
together quickly, and stumbled down the stairs, and knelt on the floor
beside his wife. The frightened faces of the servants peered at him
from the landing. He did not look up: he was stroking his wife's hand
and speaking to her softly and weeping. His tears splashed upon her
hand and upon his own hand; they fell warm and wet: something else warm
and wet touched his hand. Abruptly he became aware of a dark stain
under Esme's head; it oozed slowly, and spread darkly over the polished
floor. She was bleeding. That had to be stopped anyway.
The shock of the accident had sobered him; the cloud cleared away from
his brain and he was able to think. Quickly he went to the telephone,
hunted up a number and rang up the doctor. When he was satisfied that
help would arrive speedily he returned to his post beside the
unconscious figure of his wife, and slipped a pillow, which one of the
servants fetched at his bidding, under her head. He moved her with
infinite care. He would have lifted her and carried her upstairs, but
he dared not trust himself with this task which in his sober moments he
could have accomplished with the utmost ease. He sat beside her,
holding her hand and crying uncontrollably, until the doctor arrived and
took over the direction of affairs.
Hallam, stricken with remorse, shaken, and dazed with grief, wandered
aimlessly between his study and the landing, and stood outside the
bedroom door, which he dared not open, waiting in a terrible suspense
for information of his wife's condition.
A nurse appeared upon the scene. He did not know how she came there; he
did not know who admitted her. He heard the subdued noise of her
arrival, and later met her on the stairs, a quiet-eyed,
resourceful-looking woman, who watched him with interested curiosity as
he passed her and went down and shut himself in his study once more. In
the cold light of the dawn the house seemed alive with movement, the
stealthy rustling of people coming and going on tiptoe, and the
occasional murmur of voices speaking in undertones.
After what appeared to Hallam an interminable time the doctor came
downstairs. He accompanied Hallam into the study and sat down opposite
to him and looked with keen, understanding eyes into the haggard face of
the man whose agony of mind was written indelibly on every line of the
strongly marked features. Hallam's only question was: "Win she live?"
"Oh, yes."
The relief of this assurance was so tremendous that he scarcely took in
anything else that was said. The doctor outlined the injuries. A
fractured base was the most serious of these. He asked permission to
remove the patient to a nursing-home. The case required skilled
nursing; it was a matter of time and care; absolute quiet and freedom
from worry were essential. The removal could be accomplished that
morning, if he were agreeable. Hallam nodded.
"I leave everything in your hands," he said. "You know best."
He felt suddenly very tired. The strain of anxiety and his long night
vigil began to tell. The doctor eyed him keenly, advised food and rest,
and then rose and went out to his car. Hallam closed the front door
after him, and turned towards the stairs which he climbed wearily.
Outside the door of Esme's room he halted to listen. There was no sound
from within. The nurse was in charge he knew. He had no thought of
entering; he did not desire to enter. He shrank from the idea of
looking upon his wife's face: the memory of her face, still and white,
with the dark fringes of her closed eyes resting on the deathlike pallor
of her cheeks, haunted him; it would haunt him, he believed, all his
life.
While he stood there outside her door, in the faint light that was
creeping in wanly as the dawn advanced, he resolved that her life should
no longer be darkened with his presence: he would go away somewhere--
anywhere,--he would become lost to the world until such time as he could
feel certain that the curse which was ruining their married happiness
was conquered finally and for ever. Never again should the horror of it
cloud her peace.
With head sunk on his breast he turned away from the door and went into
his dressing-room and threw himself, dressed as he was, upon the bed.
Book 3--CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX.
Following the departure of his wife in an ambulance, Hallam made his own
preparations for leaving home for an indefinite time. He purposed going
into the interior. He wanted to be alone, away from the influences of
civilisation and the sight of European faces, away from the memory of
the past and the nightmare of recent events.
Great mental anguish, particularly anguish which is accompanied by
remorse, tends to a morbid condition of mind which renders the
individual liable to act in a manner altogether unusual. Hallam made
his preparations as a man might do who leaves his home with no thought
of ever returning. He left quite definite and detailed instructions
with his solicitor, and a letter for his wife, which was only to be
given to her when she was strong enough to receive communications of a
startling nature. In his letter he informed her that he had left her
until such time as he could with confidence feel that he would never
again cause her such distress as he had done in the past. He wrote with
restraint but with very deep feeling of his undying love for her and of
his remorse for what had happened, and ended by bidding her keep a brave
heart and carry on until his return.
He posted this letter, with instructions as to its delivery, under cover
to his lawyer, and completed his personal arrangements, and left by the
train going north.
He had no clear idea as to his destination at the time of entraining;
his one thought was to get as far away from civilisation as possible: he
intended to make for the Congo. Besides a light kit, he was provided
with sufficient money and his gun, which he carried in its case. The
undertaking was adventurous; but it was in no spirit of adventure that
he started; his heart was heavy and his mind clouded and depressed,
preoccupied with thoughts of Esme lying ill and alone in a
nursing-home--too ill to concern herself about him for the present; but
later he knew she would ask for him and wonder why he did not come.
That could not be avoided: she would grow reconciled to his absence, and
she would get well quicker without him to worry about.
Hallam had secured a compartment to himself, a fact which gave him
immense satisfaction. He leaned with his arms on the window and
surveyed the lively scene on the platform in gloomy abstraction in the
interval before the train started. Other passengers leaned from the
windows also for a few last words with friends who were seeing them off.
But Hallam spoke to no one, and no one paid any attention to the
solitary man looking from his compartment on the animated scene below.
Doors slammed noisily, and the guard raised his flag, and instantly
lowered it again as, amid a confusion of bustle and excitement, two
belated travellers arrived and were bundled unceremoniously into the
carriage next to Hallam's. Their baggage was flung in through the
windows after them. Then the whistle sounded and the train moved slowly
out of the station.
Disturbed and singularly annoyed, Hallam drew back and sat down in the
corner seat. The people whose tardy arrival had delayed the start by a
couple of minutes were the Garfields. He had recognised them instantly;
he believed that they had seen and recognised him. He felt oddly
irritated. Had his flight been a criminal proceeding and the secrecy of
his movements imperative, he could not have been more discomposed by the
knowledge that these people, who were friends of his wife and with whom
he was acquainted, were in the next compartment to his. He would
probably encounter them later, almost certainly they would meet in the
restaurant-car. They would regard it in the light of a social
obligation to inquire for his wife. Mrs Garfield had already called
both at the house and at the nursing-home for news of Esme. He had not
seen her; he shrank from the thought of seeing her; but he knew that he
would be compelled to face her sooner or later. She was one of the few
people whose persistent friendship for his wife refused to be dismayed
by an absence of response. She understood Esme's difficulties, and
sympathised with and admired her tremendously.
The news of the accident, which no one associated with Hallam, had
genuinely distressed her. If by her presence she could have been of
service during Esme's illness she would have put off her journey to the
Falls; but her visit to the nursing-home had convinced her that Esme was
not in a condition to need any one; she might be of some use later
during the period of convalescence.
Her surprise at seeing Hallam on the train was great. That he should be
leaving Cape Town then occurred to her as little short of amazing.
While her husband was engaged in stowing their baggage away on the racks
she asked him if he had noticed who was in the next compartment to
theirs. Apparently he had. He looked down at her and nodded.
"Odd chap?" he said. "Most men would prefer to remain on the spot, even
if their presence wasn't actually needed."
"The journey may be a matter of necessity," she said.
"It may be, of course." He lifted the last bag up to the rack and sat
down opposite to her and unrolled a bundle of papers. "We ran it rather
fine, old girl. The next time I take you on a holiday I hope you'll get
forrader with your preparations."
"You old Adam, you!" she said, smiling, and leaned forward to pat his
knee.
And the man in the next compartment sat and smoked and meditated
gloomily, while the train ran on through fertile grass-veld towards the
mountains and the sterile plain which lay beyond them.
In the vexation of seeing people he knew on the train, Hallam's first
thought had been to leave it at a convenient stopping place and wait for
the next train and so resume his journey; but on reflection this idea
seemed a little absurd. Of what interest could his movements possibly
be to the Garfields? They would leave the train in all probability long
before he did, and the greatest inconvenience their presence would cause
him would be an occasional and brief encounter.
The first encounter occurred very speedily: Mr Garfield came to his
compartment and stood in the corridor and inquired after his wife. He
expressed much sympathy with Hallam.
"We were shocked," he said, "when we heard. My wife called at the
nursing-home, but she wasn't allowed to see Mrs Hallam. I trust she is
doing well?"
"The doctor tells me so," Hallam answered, with what the other man
considered a curious lack of feeling. "She is too ill at present to see
any one."
The talk hung for a while. Mr Garfield, who never felt at his ease
with Hallam, was none the less profoundly sorry for the man. He
believed that the callous manner was assumed to cloak his real feelings.
The haggard face and sombre eyes betokened considerable mental anguish.
"It is rather an awkward time for you to have to get away," he ventured.
"It is." Hallam's tone became more constrained. He moved restlessly,
and looked beyond the speaker out at the changing scenery. "But at
least I can't help by remaining," he added. Abruptly he brought his
gaze back again and looked steadily into the other's eyes with an
expression that was faintly apologetic. "I haven't recovered from the
shock yet," he said. "I'm worried."
Garfield nodded sympathetically.
"My dear fellow, of course. It's not surprising that you should be. If
we can do anything, let us know. And if you want a chat come along to
our compartment; we're only next door. I'm taking the wife to the
Falls. It's her first visit. I expect we'll put in about a couple of
weeks there. Do you go as far?"
"I'm going farther," Hallam answered briefly. But, although Garfield
looked inquiry, he did not give him any more definite information in
regard to his destination.
Hallam had started on his journey with no thought of deserting his wife
and leaving his home for ever: he had come away simply because he felt
the imperative necessity for change and solitude. The man's mind was
dark with despair. This feeling of despair deepened with every passing
hour. Fear held him in its grip. He mistrusted himself. The horror of
what had happened haunted him night and day; he could not sleep for
thinking of it. Always before his mind's eye was the picture of his
wife--falling--falling headlong--striking the ground with a thud--lying
still and white at the foot of the stairs, with the dark stain under her
head slowly spreading on the darker wood of the floor...
How had this thing happened? How had he come to lose control of himself
completely? He ought not to have married her. He had done her an
irreparable injury by tying her life to his...
Throughout the long hot days he sat in his compartment and brooded, and
when the gold merged with the evening purple, and the purple deepened to
night, he stretched himself on his bunk, and lay looking out at the
star-strewn sky through the unshuttered windows, and brooded still with
a mind too distraught to rest.
He believed that some brain sickness was coming upon him; he felt
wretchedly ill; and from the way in which people stared at him when he
entered the dining-car he judged that his appearance evidenced his
physical and mental debility. Although he forced himself to go to meals
he ate little; he had no appetite for food; the smell and the sight of
it nauseated him.
He began to think that he would be compelled to leave the train: the
confined space and the heat were making him ill. He found himself
falling into the habit of talking to himself. This development
horrified him no more than it horrified Mrs Garfield, who overheard
him, and communicated her fear to her husband that Hallam was mad. His
proximity made her nervous. She lay awake the greater part of one night
listening to his mutterings, and fell asleep with the dawn and slept
heavily until breakfast time. It came as a great relief to her to
discover later that Hallam had left the train in the early morning.
He had alighted at a wayside halt, moved by an inexplicable impulse too
strong to resist. Dread of another long day, of another sleepless night
on the train, had been the ruling motive. He felt that if he did not
get out and walk he would be ill. He was on the verge of a collapse,
and in no condition of mind to realise the foolishness of alighting in
this barren waste, with no prospect of shelter or refreshment within
view. There must be farms somewhere in the neighbourhood, he judged, or
at least a native hut where he could procure all he needed. For the
moment he required only to walk in the pure air, to exert his muscles,
and rid himself of the intolerable strain on his overcharged nerves.
Something had seemed to snap in his brain during the night. He found it
increasingly difficult to concentrate his attention on anything for
long. But the idea that he must walk obsessed him; and, with his
gun-case in hand and his kit across his shoulders, he struck across the
veld, turning his back on the permanent way.
It did not greatly matter which direction he took; he had no particular
objective in view: he wanted chiefly to shake off this annoying sense of
unfitness. He had never been ill in his life before: he did not
understand it. It had seemed to him that if he could walk he would be
all right, and instead he felt worse. He was giddy, and he could not
make any pace. He took a bush for a landmark and noted how long he was
in reaching it. It amazed him. He became angrily impatient with his
own laggard steps: he wasn't walking, he was crawling--crawling like a
sick animal, with a sick animal's instinct to find some hole to creep
into.
He looked about him vaguely, with tired eyes. That was what he wanted,
all he wanted,--some quiet shelter into which to crawl and rest.
He stumbled on, tripping over the dry scrub, lurching heavily like a
drunken man, and clinging tightly to his gun-case, as to something from
which he would not be separated, though the weight of it was too great
for his failing strength. Twice he came to his knees; but each time he
rose again and stumbled blindly on as before.
The sun rose higher in the heavens. It poured its warmth like some
molten stream upon the gaping ground. For miles around the veld
stretched in unbroken sameness, blackened from the long drought, sparse
and scrubby, with never a sign of any living thing, save the solitary
man's figure, moving slowly, with heavy uncertain gait, in quest of some
temporary shelter from the sun's burning rays.
It seemed to Hallam that he walked many miles and for many hours before,
a long way off like some wonderful oasis amid the arid waste, he
descried signs of water, and the wooded banks of a river which meandered
like a green irregular wall across the stark nakedness of the land. The
sight of this unexpected fertility gave him fresh heart and stimulated
his failing energies to further effort. By sheer force of will he
dragged his lagging feet over the uneven ground. He desired only to
reach the river and lie down beside it and rest. He longed simply to
get to the water, to feel it, to lave his burning brow in its coolness,
to moisten his parched lips.
Again he fell, and again he rose and staggered on, covering the
intervening space painfully and slowly. When he was quite close to the
bank he fell once more, and this time he failed to rise, despite his
persistent efforts. For the first time his hold on his gun-case
relaxed. He stared at it regretfully; but he knew that he was powerless
to drag it further. He left it lying where it was, and crawled on his
hands and knees painfully towards the bushes, crawled between them, and
reached the shallow river which had been his goal.
Book 3--CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN.
Esme's accident, and the contemporaneous and mysterious disappearance of
Hallam, brought Rose in haste and at great personal inconvenience round
to Cape Town. She was terribly worried about her sister, and enormously
concerned at Hallam's departure at a time when it seemed to her his
presence was urgently needed.
Her concern deepened as the days passed, the weeks passed, and still
there was no word from him, no news of his whereabouts. The information
which the Garfields furnished on their return gave a sinister aspect to
the look of things. And Esme as she got better was continually asking
for her husband. She fretted at his absence; and when ultimately she
was allowed to have the letter he had left for her, though she ceased to
ask for him, she fretted more than before.
The contents of the letter, which she refused to allow any one else to
read, upset her greatly. It elucidated nothing of the mystery of his
complete disappearance, but merely informed her that he had gone away
for an indefinite time. She felt assured from her knowledge of him that
he would never return until he was master of himself.
Her heart was nigh to breaking with her longing for him, and with pity,
pity for the suffering which she knew he was enduring: his agony of mind
must be terrible. She wanted to see him, to put her arms about him and
bid him think no more of what was past. It was grievous to her to think
of him alone with heart and mind heavy with sorrow and remorse. If only
she could be with him she would help him to forget. The injury to
herself seemed to her so small a part of the trouble; it was so entirely
accidental: largely her own carelessness was responsible for her fall;
if she had been on her guard it need not have happened. She believed
that if she could talk to him she could make him see this. She wanted
to help him, to comfort him. And she wanted him beside her, wanted his
love, his presence, with a feverish urgency that burned like a fever in
her veins, and left her sick with unsatisfied longing as the days
dragged by without bringing him, without bringing news of him even. If
he had died he could not have vanished more completely out of her life.