RUNAWAY HORSES
I
Rachel, according to her own impression the next morning, had no sleep
during that night. The striking of the hall clock could not be heard
in the bedroom with the door closed, but it could be felt as a faint,
distinct concussion; and she had thus noted every hour, except four
o'clock, when daylight had come and the street lamp had been put out.
She had deliberately feigned sleep as Louis entered the room, and had
maintained the soft, regular breathing of a sleeper until long after
he was in bed. She did not wish to talk; she could not have talked
with any safety.
Her brain was occupied much by the strange and emotional episode of
Julian's confession, but still more by the situation of her husband in
the affair. Julian's story had precisely corroborated one part of Mrs.
Maldon's account of her actions on the evening when the bank-notes had
disappeared. Little by little that recital of Mrs. Maldon's had been
discredited, and at length cast aside as no more important than the
delirium of a dying creature; it was an inconvenient story, and would
only fit in with the alternative theories that money had wings and
could fly on its own account, or that there had been thieves in
the house. Far easier to assume that Mrs. Maldon in some lapse had
unwittingly done away with the notes! But Mrs. Maldon was now suddenly
reinstated as a witness. And if one part of her evidence was true, why
should not the other part be true? Her story was that she had put the
remainder of the bank-notes on the chair on the landing, and then (she
thought) in the wardrobe. Rachel recalled clearly all that she had
seen and all that she had been told. She remembered once more the
warnings that had been addressed to her. She lived the evening and
the night of the theft over again, many times, monotonously, and with
increasing woe and agitation.
Then with the greenish dawn, that the blinds let into the room, came
some refreshment and new health to the brain, but the trend of
her ideas was not modified. She lay on her side and watched the
unconscious Louis for immense periods, and occasionally tears
filled her eyes. The changes in her existence seemed so swift and so
tremendous as to transcend belief. Was it conceivable that only twelve
hours earlier she had been ecstatically happy? In twelve hours--in six
hours--she had aged twenty years, and she now saw the Rachel of
the reception and of the bicycle lesson as a young girl, touchingly
ingenuous, with no more notion of danger than a baby.
At six o'clock she arose. Already she had formed the habit of arising
before Louis, and had reconciled herself to the fact that Louis had to
be forced out of bed. Happily, his feet once on the floor, he became
immediately manageable. Already she was the conscience and time-keeper
of the house. She could dress herself noiselessly; in a week she had
perfected all her little devices for avoiding noise and saving time.
She finally left the room neat, prim, with lips set to a thousand
responsibilities. She had a peculiar sensation of tight elastic about
her eyes, but she felt no fatigue, and she did not yawn. Mrs. Tams,
who had just descended, found her taciturn and exacting. She would
have every household task performed precisely in her own way, without
compromise. And it appeared that the house, which had the air of being
in perfect order, was not in order at all, that indeed the processes
of organization had, in young Mrs. Fores' opinion, scarcely yet begun.
It appeared that there was no smallest part or corner of the house as
to which young Mrs. Fores had not got very definite ideas and plans.
The individuality of Mrs. Tams was to have scope nowhere. But after
all, this seemed quite natural to Mrs. Tams.
When Rachel went back to the bedroom, about 7.30, to get Louis by
ruthlessness and guile out of bed, she was surprised to discover that
he had already gone up to the bathroom. She guessed, with vague alarm,
from this symptom that he had a new and very powerful interest in
life. He came to breakfast at three minutes to eight, three minutes
before it was served. When she entered the parlour in the wake of
Mrs. Tams he kissed her with gay fervour. She permitted herself to be
kissed. Her unresponsiveness, though not marked, disconcerted him and
somewhat dashed his mood. Whereupon Rachel, by the reassurance of her
voice, set about to convince him that he had been mistaken in deeming
her unresponsive. So that he wavered between two moods.
As she sat behind the tray, amid the exquisite odours of fresh coffee
and Ted Malkin's bacon (for she had forgiven Miss Malkin), behaving
like a staid wife of old standing, she well knew that she was a
mystery for Louis. She was the source of his physical comfort, the
origin of the celestial change in his life which had caused him to
admit fully that to live in digs was "a rotten game"; but she was
also, that morning, a most sinister mystery. Her behaviour was
faultless. He could seize on no definite detail that should properly
disturb him; only she had woven a veil between herself and him. Still,
his liveliness scarcely abated.
"Do you know what I'm going to do this very day as ever is?" he asked.
"What is it?"
"I'm going to buy you a bike. I've had enough of that old crock I
borrowed for you. I shall return it and come back with a new 'un. And
I know the precise bike that I shall come back with. It's at Bostock's
at Hanbridge. They've just opened a new cycle department."
"Oh, Louis!" she protested.
His scheme for spending money on her flattered her. But nevertheless
it was a scheme for spending money. Two hundred and twenty-five
pounds had dropped into his lap, and he must needs begin instantly to
dissipate it. He could not keep it. That was Louis! She refused to
see that the purchase of a bicycle was the logical consequence of her
lessons. She desired to believe that by some miracle at some future
date she could possess a bicycle without a bicycle being bought--and
in the meantime was there not the borrowed machine?
Suddenly she yawned.
"Didn't you sleep well?" he demanded.
"Not very."
"Oh!"
She could almost see into the interior of his brain, where he was
persuading himself that fatigue alone was the explanation of her
peculiar demeanour, and rejoicing that the mystery was, after all,
neither a mystery nor sinister.
"I say," he began between two puffs of a cigarette after breakfast, "I
shall send back half of that money to Julian. I'll send the notes by
registered post."
"Shall you?"
"Yes. Don't you think he'll keep them?"
"Supposing I was to take them over to him myself--and insist?" she
suggested.
"It's a notion. When?"
"Well, on Saturday afternoon. He'll be at home probably then."
"All right," Louis agreed. "I'll give you the money later on."
Nothing more was said as to the Julian episode. It seemed that husband
and wife were equally determined not to discuss it merely for the sake
of discussing it.
Shortly after half-past eight Louis was preparing the borrowed bicycle
and his own in the back yard.
"I shall ride mine and tow the crock," said he, looking up at Rachel
as he screwed a valve. She had come into the yard in order to show a
polite curiosity in his doings.
"Isn't it dangerous?"
"Are you dangerous?" he laughed.
"But when shall you go?"
"Now."
"Shan't you be late at the works?"
"Well, if I'm late at the beautiful works I shall be late at the
beautiful works. Those who don't like it will have to lump it."
Once more, it was the consciousness of a loose, entirely available two
hundred and twenty-five pounds that was making him restive under the
yoke of regular employment. For a row of pins, that morning, he would
have given Jim Horrocleave a week's notice, or even the amount of a
week's wages in lieu of notice! Rachel sighed, but within herself.
In another minute he was elegantly flying down Bycars Lane, guiding
his own bicycle with his right hand and the crock with his left
hand. The feat appeared miraculous to Rachel, who watched from the
bow-window of the parlour. Beyond question he made a fine figure. And
it was for her that he was flying to Hanbridge! She turned away to her
domesticity.
II
It seemed to her that he had scarcely been gone ten minutes when one
of the glorious taxicabs which had recently usurped the stand of the
historic fly under the Town Hall porch drew up at the front door, and
Louis got out of it. The sound of his voice was the first intimation
to Rachel that it was Louis who was arriving. He shouted at the
cabman as he paid the fare. The window of the parlour was open and the
curtains pinned up. She ran to the window, and immediately saw that
Louis' head was bandaged. Then she ran to the door. He was climbing
rather stiffly up the steps.
"All right! All right!" he shouted at her. "A spill. Nothing of the
least importance. But both the jiggers are pretty well converted into
old iron. I tell you it's all _right_! Shut the door."
He bumped down on the oak chest, and took a long breath.
"But you are frightfully hurt!" she exclaimed. She could not properly
see his face for the bandages.
Mrs. Tams appeared. Rachel murmured to her in a flash--
"Go out the back way and fetch Dr. Yardley at once."
She felt herself absolutely calm. What puzzled her was Louis'
shouting. Then she understood he was shouting from mere excitement and
did not realize that he shouted.
"No need for any doctor! Quite simple!" he called out.
But Rachel gave a word confirming the original order to Mrs. Tams, who
disappeared.
"First thing I knew I was the centre of an admiring audience, and fat
Mrs. Heath, in her white apron and the steel hanging by her side, was
washing my face with a sponge and a basin of water, and Heath stood by
with brandy. It was nearly opposite their shop. People in the tram had
a rare view of me."
"But was it the tram-car you ran into?" Rachel asked eagerly.
He replied with momentary annoyance--
"Tram-car! Of course it wasn't the tram-car. Moreover, I didn't run
into anything. Two horses ran into me. I was coming down past the
Shambles into Duck Bank--very slowly, because I could hear a tram
coming along from the market-place--and just as I got past the
Shambles and could see along the market-place, I saw a lad on a
cart-horse and leading another horse. No stirrups, no saddle. He'd no
more control over either horse than a baby over an elephant. Not a bit
more. Both horses were running away. The horse he was supposed to
be leading was galloping first. They were passing the tram at a fine
rate."
"But how far were they off you?"
"About ten yards. I said to myself, 'If that chap doesn't look out
he'll be all over me in two seconds.' I turned as sharp as I could
away to the left. I could have turned sharper if I'd had your bicycle
in my right hand instead of my left. But it wouldn't have made any
difference. The first horse simply made straight for me. There was
about a mile of space for him between me and the tram, but he wouldn't
look at it. He wanted me, and he had me. They both had me. I never
felt the actual shock. Curious, that! I'm told one horse put his foot
clean through the back wheel of my bike. Then he was stopped by the
front palings of the Conservative Club. Oh! a pretty smash! The other
horse and the boy thereon finished half-way up Moorthorne Road. He
could stick on, no mistake, that kid could. Midland Railway horses.
Whoppers. Either being taken to the vets' or brought from the
vet's--_I_ don't know. I forget."
Rachel put her hand on his arm.
"Do come into the parlour and have the easy-chair."
"I'll come--I'll come," he said, with the same annoyance. "Give us a
chance." His voice was now a little less noisy.
"But you might have been killed!"
"You bet I might! Eight hoofs all over me! One tap from any of the
eight would have settled yours sincerely."
"Louis!" She spoke firmly. "You must come into the parlour. Now come
along, do, and sit down and let me look at your face." She removed his
hat, which was perched rather insecurely on the top of the bandages.
"Who was it looked after you?"
"Well," he hesitated, following her into the parlour, "it seems to
have been chiefly Mrs. Heath."
"But didn't they take you to a chemist's? Isn't there a chemist's
handy?"
"The great Greene had one of his bilious attacks and was in bed,
it appears. And the great Greene's assistant is only just out of
petticoats, I believe. However, everybody acted for the best, and here
I am. And if you ask me, I think I've come out of it rather well."
He dropped heavily on to the Chesterfield. What she could see of his
cheeks was very pale.
"Open the window," he murmured. "It's frightfully stuffy here."
"The window is open," she said. In fact, a noticeable draught blew
through the room. "I'll open it a bit more."
Before doing so she lifted his feet on to the Chesterfield.
"That's better. That's better," he breathed.
When, a moment later, she returned to him with a glass of water which
she had brought from the kitchen, spilling drops of it along the whole
length of the passage, he smiled at her and then winked.
It was the wink that seemed pathetic to her. She had maintained her
laudable calm until he winked, and then her throat tightened.
"He may have some dreadful internal injury," she thought. "You never
know. I may be a widow soon. And every one will say, 'How young she is
to be a widow!' It will make me blush. But such things can't happen to
me. No, he's all right. He came up here alone. They'd never have let
him come up here alone if he hadn't been all right. Besides, he can
walk. How silly I am!"
She bent down and kissed him passionately.
"I must have those bandages off, dearest," she whispered. "I suppose
to-morrow I'd better return them to Mrs. Heath."
He muttered: "She said she always kept linen for bandages in the
shop because they so often cut themselves. Now, I used to think in my
innocence that butchers never cut themselves."
Very gently and intently Rachel unfastened two safety-pins that were
hidden in Louis' untidy hair. Then she began to unwind a long strip
of linen. It stuck to a portion of the cheek close to the ear. Louis
winced. The inner folds of the linen were discoloured. Rachel had a
glimpse of a wound....
"Go on!" Louis urged. "Get at it, child!"
"No," she said. "I think I shall leave it just as it is for the doctor
to deal with. Shall you mind if I leave you for a minute? I must get
some warm water and things ready against the doctor comes."
He retorted facetiously: "Oh! Do what you like! Work your will on
me.... Doctor! Any one 'ud think I was badly injured. Why, you cuckoo,
it's only skin wounds!"
"But doesn't it _hurt_?"
"Depends what you call hurt. It ain't a picnic."
"I think you're awfully brave," she said simply.
At the door she stopped and gazed at him, undecided.
"Louis," she said in a motherly tone, "I should like you to go to bed.
I really should. You ought to, I'm sure."
"Well, I shan't," he replied.
"But please! To please me! You can get up again."
"Oh, go to blazes!" he cried resentfully. "What in thunder should I go
to bed for, I should like to know? Have a little sense, do!" He shut
his eyes.
He had never till then spoken to her so roughly.
"Very well," she agreed, with soothing acquiescence. His outburst had
not irritated her in the slightest degree.
In the kitchen, as she bent over the kettle and the fire, each object
was surrounded by a sort of halo, like the moon in damp weather. She
brushed her hand across her eyes, contemptuous of herself. Then she
ran lightly upstairs and searched out an old linen garment and tore
the seams of it apart. She crept back to the parlour and peeped in.
Louis had not moved on the sofa. His eyes were still closed. After a
few seconds, he said, without stirring--
"I've not yet passed away. I can see you."
She responded with a little laugh, somewhat forced.
After an insupportable delay Mrs. Tams reappeared, out of breath.
Dr. Yardley had just gone out, but he was expected back very soon and
would then be sent down instantly.
Mrs. Tams, quite forgetful of etiquette, followed Rachel, unasked,
into the parlour.
"What?" said Louis loudly. "Two of you! Isn't one enough?"
Mrs. Tams vanished.
"Heath took charge of the bikes," Louis murmured, as if to the
ceiling.
Over half an hour elapsed before the gate creaked.
"There he is!" Rachel exclaimed happily. After having conceived a
hundred different tragic sequels to the accident, she was lifted by
the mere creak of the gate into a condition of pure optimism, and
she realized what a capacity she had for secretly being a ninny in an
unexpected crisis. But she thought with satisfaction: "Anyhow, I don't
show it. That's one good thing!" She was now prepared to take oath
that she had not for one moment been _really_ anxious about
Louis. Her demeanour, as she stated the case to the doctor, was a
masterpiece of tranquil unconcern.
III
Dr. Yardley said that he was in a hurry--that, in fact, he ought to
have been quite elsewhere at the time. He was preoccupied, and showed
no sympathy with the innocent cyclist who had escaped the fatal
menace of hoofs. When Rachel offered him the torn linen, he silently
disdained it, and, opening a small bag which he had brought with
him, produced therefrom a roll of cotton-wool in blue paper, and
a considerable quantity of sticking-plaster on a brass reel. He
accepted, however, Rachel's warm water.
"You might get me some Condy's Fluid," he said shortly.
She had none! It was a terrible lapse for a capable housewife.
Dr. Yardley raised his eyebrows: "No Condy's Fluid in the house!"
She was condemned.
"I do happen to have a couple of tablets of Chinosol," he said, "but I
wanted to keep them in reserve for later in the day."
He threw two yellow tablets into the basin of water.
Then he laid Louis flat on the sofa, asked him a few questions, and
sounded him in various parts. And at length he slowly, but firmly,
drew off Mrs. Heath's bandages, and displayed Louis' head to the
light.
"Hm!" he exclaimed.
Rachel restrained herself from any sound. But the spectacle was
ghastly. The one particle of comfort in the dreadful matter was that
Louis could not see himself.
Thenceforward Dr. Yardley seemed to forget that he ought to have been
elsewhere. Working with extraordinary deliberation, he coaxed out
of Louis' flesh sundry tiny stones and many fragments of mud,
straightened twisted bits of skin, and he removed other pieces
entirely. He murmured, "Hm!" at intervals. He expressed a brief
criticism of the performance of Mrs. Heath, as distinguished from her
intentions. He also opined that the great Greene might not perhaps
have succeeded much better than Mrs. Heath, even if he had not been
bilious. When the dressing was finished, the gruesome terror of Louis'
appearance seemed to be much increased. The heroic sufferer rose and
glanced at himself in the mirror, and gave a faint whistle.
"Oh! So that's what I look like, is it? Well, what price me as a
victim of the Inquisition!" he remarked.
"I should advise you not to take exercise just now, young man," said
the doctor. "D'you feel pretty well?"
"Pretty well," answered Louis, and sat down.
In the lobby the doctor, once more in a hurry, said to Rachel--
"Better get him quietly to bed. The wounds are not serious, but he's
had a very severe shock."
"He's not marked for life, is he?" Rachel asked anxiously.
"I shouldn't think so," said the doctor, as if the point was a minor
one. "Let him have some nourishment. You can begin with hot milk--but
put some water to it," he added when he was half-way down the steps.
As Rachel re-entered the parlour she said to herself: "I shall just
have to get him to bed somehow, whatever he says! If he's unpleasant
he must _be_ unpleasant, that's all."
And she hardened her heart. But immediately she saw him again, sitting
forlornly in the chair, with the whole of the left side of his face
criss-crossed in whitish-grey plaster, she was ready to cry over him
and flatter his foolishest whim. She wanted to take him in her arms,
if he would but have allowed her. She felt that she could have borne
his weight for hours without moving, had he fallen asleep against her
bosom.... Still, he must be got to bed. How negligent of the doctor
not to have given the order himself!
Then Louis said: "I say! I think I may as well lie down!"
She was about to cry out, "Oh, you must!"
But she forbore. She became as wily as old Batchgrew.
"Do you think so?" she answered, doubtfully.
"I've nothing else particular on hand," he said.
She knew that he wanted to surrender without appearing to surrender.
"Well," she suggested, "will you lie down on the bed for a bit?"
"I think I will."
"And then I'll give you some hot milk."
She dared not help him to mount the stairs, but she walked close
behind him.
"I was thinking," he said on the landing, "I'd stroll down and take
stock of those bicycles later in the day. But perhaps I'm not fit to
be seen."
She thought: "You won't stroll down later in the day--I shall see to
that."
"By the way," he said, "you might send Mrs. Tams down to Horrocleave's
to explain that I shan't give them my valuable assistance to-day....
Oh! Mrs. Tams"--the woman was just bustling out of the bedroom, duster
in hand--"will you toddle down to the works and tell them I'm not
coming?"
"Eh, mester!" breathed Mrs. Tams, looking at him. "It's a mercy it's
no worse."
"Yes," Louis teased her, "but you go and look at the basin downstairs,
Mrs. Tams. That'll give you food for thought."
Shaking her head, she smiled at Rachel, because the master had spirit
enough to be humorous with her.
In the bedroom, Louis said, "I might be more comfortable if I took
some of my clothes off."
Thereupon he abandoned himself to Rachel. She did as she pleased with
him, and he never opposed. Seven bruises could be counted on his left
side. He permitted himself to be formally and completely put to bed.
He drank half a glass of hot milk, and then said that he could not
possibly swallow any more. Everything had been done that ought to be
done and that could be done. And Rachel kept assuring herself that
there was not the least cause for anxiety. She also told herself that
she had been a ninny once that morning, and that once was enough.
Nevertheless, she remained apprehensive, and her apprehensions
increased. It was Louis' unnatural manageableness that disturbed her.
And when, about three hours later, he murmured, "Old girl, I feel
pretty bad."
"I knew it," she said to herself.
His complaint was like a sudden thunderclap in her ears, after long
faint rumblings of a storm.
Towards tea-time she decided that she must send for the doctor again.
Louis indeed demanded the doctor. He said that he was very ill. His
bruised limbs and his damaged face caused him a certain amount of
pain. It was not, however, the pain that frightened him, but a general
and profound sensation of illness. He could describe no symptoms.
There were indeed no symptoms save the ebbing of vitality. He said he
had never in his life felt as he felt then. His appearance confirmed
the statement. The look of his eyes was tragic. His hands were
pale. His agonized voice was extremely distressing to listen to. The
bandages heightened the whole sinister effect. Dusk shadowed the room.
Rachel lit the gas and drew the blinds. But in a few moments Louis
complained of the light, and she had to lower the jet.
The sounds of the return of Mrs. Tams could be heard below. Mrs.
Tams had received instructions to bring the doctor back with her, but
Rachel's ear caught no sign of the doctor. She went out to the head
of the stairs. The doctor simply must be there. It was not conceivable
that when summoned he should be "out" twice in one day, but so it was.
Mrs. Tams, whispering darkly from the dim foot of the stairs, said
that Mrs. Yardley hoped that he would be in shortly, but could not be
sure.
"What am I to do?" thought Rachel. "This is a crisis. Everything
depends on me. What shall I do? Shall I send for another doctor?" She
decided to risk the chances and wait. It would be too absurd to have
two doctors in the house. What would people say of her and of Louis,
if the rumour ran that she had lost her head and filled the house with
doctors when the case had no real gravity? People would say that she
was very young and inexperienced, and a freshly married wife, and so
on. And Rachel hated to be thought young or freshly married. Besides,
another doctor might be "out" too. And further, the case could not be
truly serious. Of course, if afterwards it did prove to be serious,
she would never forgive herself.
"He'll be here soon," she said cheerfully, to Louis in the bedroom.
"If he isn't--" moaned Louis, and stopped.
She gave him some brandy, against his will. Then, taking his wrist to
feel it, she felt his fingers close on her wrist, as if for aid. And
she sat thus on the bed holding his hand in the gloom of the lowered
gas.
IV
His weakness and his dependence on her gave her a feeling of kind
superiority. And also her own physical well-being was such that she
could not help condescending towards him. She cared for a trustful,
helpless little dog. She thought a great deal about him; she longed
ardently to be of assistance to him; she had an acute sense of her
responsibility and her duty. Yet, notwithstanding all that, her brain
was perhaps chiefly occupied with herself and her own attitude towards
existence. She became mentally and imaginatively active to an intense
degree. She marvelled at existence as she had never marvelled before,
and while seeming suddenly to understand it better she was far more
than ever baffled by it. Was it credible that the accident of a lad
losing control of a horse could have such huge and awful consequences
on two persons utterly unconnected with the lad? A few seconds sooner,
a few seconds later--and naught would have occurred to Louis, but he
must needs be at exactly a certain spot at exactly a certain instant,
with the result that now she was in torture! If this, if that, if the
other--Louis would have been well and gay at that very moment, instead
of a broken organism humiliated on a bed and clinging to her like a
despairing child.
The rapidity and variety of events in her life again startled her, and
once more she went over them. The disappearance of the bank-notes was
surely enough in itself. But on the top of that fell the miracle of
her love affair. Her marriage was like a dream of romance to her,
untrue, incredible. Then there was the terrific episode of Julian
on the previous night. One would have supposed that after that the
sensationalism of events would cease. But, no! The unforeseeable had
now occurred, something which reduced all else to mere triviality.
And yet what had in fact occurred? Acquaintances, in recounting her
story, would say that she had married her mistress's nephew, that
there had been trouble between Louis and Julian about some bank-notes,
and that Louis had had a bicycle accident. Naught more! A most
ordinary chronicle! And if he died now, they would say that Louis
had died within a month of the wedding and how sad it was! Husbands
indubitably do die, young wives indubitably are transformed into
widows--daily event, indeed!... She seemed to perceive the deep,
hidden meaning of life. There were three Rachels in her--one who
pitied Louis, one who pitied herself, and one who looked on and
impartially comprehended. The last was scarcely unhappy--only
fervently absorbed in the prodigious wonder of the hour.
"Can't you do anything?" Louis murmured.
"If Dr. Yardley doesn't come quick, I shall send for some other
doctor," she said, with decision.
He sighed.
"Better send for a lawyer at the same time," he said.
"A lawyer?"
"Yes. You know I've not made my will."
"Oh, Louis! Please don't talk like that! I can't bear to hear you."
"You'll have to hear worse things than that," he said pettishly,
loosing her hand. "I've got to have a solicitor here. Later on you'll
probably be only too glad that I had enough common sense to send for
a solicitor. Somebody must have a little common sense. I expect you'd
better send for Lawton.... Oh! It's Friday afternoon--he'll have left
early for his week-end golf, I bet." This last discovery seemed to
exhaust his courage.
In another minute the doctor, cheerful and energetic, was actually in
the room, and the gas brilliant. He gazed at an exanimate Louis, made
a few inquiries and a few observations of his own, gave some brief
instructions, and departed. The day was in truth one of his busy days.
He seemed surprised when Rachel softly called to him on the stairs.
"I suppose everything's all right, doctor?"
"Yes," said he casually. "He'll feel mighty queer for a few days.
That's all."
"Then there's no danger?"
"Certainly not."
"But he thinks he's dying."
Dr. Yardley smiled carelessly.
"And do you?... He's no more dying than I am. That's only the effect
of the shock. Didn't I tell you this morning? You probably won't be
able to stop him just yet from thinking he's dying--it is a horrid
feeling--but you needn't think so yourself, Mrs. Fores." He smiled.
"Oh, doctor," she burst out, "you don't know how you've relieved me!"
"You'll excuse me if I fly away," said Dr. Yardley calmly. "There's a
crowd of insurance patients waiting for me at the surgery."
V
In the middle of the night Rachel was awakened by Louis' appeal. She
was so profoundly asleep that for a few moments she could not recall
what it was that had happened during the previous day to cause her
anxiety.
After the visit of the doctor, Louis' moral condition had apparently
improved. He had affected to be displeased by the doctor's air of
treating his case as though it was deprived of all importance. He
had said that the doctor had failed to grasp his case. He had stated
broadly that in these days of State health insurance all doctors
were too busy and too wealthy to be of assistance to private patients
capable of paying their bills in the old gentlemanly fashion. But his
remarks had not been without a touch of facetiousness in their wilful
disgust. And the mere tone of his voice proved that he felt better. To
justify his previous black pessimism he had of course been obliged to
behave in a certain manner (well known among patients who have been
taking themselves too seriously), and Rachel had understood and
excused. She would have been ready, indeed, to excuse for worse
extravagances than any that could have occurred to the fancy of a
nature so polite and benevolent as that of Louis; for, in order to
atone for her silly school-girlishness, she had made a compact with
herself to be an angel and a serpent simultaneously for the entire
remainder of her married life.
Then Mrs. Tams had come in, from errands of marketing, with a copy of
the early special of the _Signal_, containing a description of
the accident. Mrs. Tams had never before bought such a thing as a
newspaper, but an acquaintance of hers who "stood the market" with
tripe and chitterlings had told her that Mr. Fores was "in" the
_Signal_, and accordingly she had bravely stopped a news-boy
in the street and made the purchase. To Rachel she pointed out the
paragraph with pride, and to please her and divert Louis, Rachel
had introduced the newspaper into the bedroom. The item was headed:
"Runaway Horses in Bursley Market-place. Providential Escape." It
spoke of Mr. Louis Fores' remarkable skill and presence of mind in
swerving away with two bicycles. It said that Mr. Louis Fores was an
accomplished cyclist, and that after a severe shaking Mr. Louis Fores
drove home in a taxicab "apparently little the worse, save for facial
contusions, for his perilous adventure." Lastly, it said that a
representative of the Midland Railway had "assured our representative
that the horses were not the property of the Midland Railway." Louis
had sardonically repeated the phrase "apparently little the worse,"
murmuring it with his eyes shut. He had said, "I wish they could see
me." Still, he had made no further mention of sending for a solicitor.
He had taken a little food and a little drink. He had asked Rachel
when she meant to go to bed. And at length Rachel, having first
arranged food for use in the night, and fixed a sheet of note-paper on
the gas-bracket as a screen between the gas and Louis, had undressed
and got into bed, and gone off into a heavy slumber with a mind
comparatively free.
In response to his confusing summons, she stumbled to her peignoir and
slipped it on.
"Yes, dear?" she spoke softly.
"I couldn't bear it any longer," said the voice of Louis. "I just had
to waken you."
She raised the gas, and her eyes blinked as she stared at him. His
bedclothes were horribly disarranged.
"Are you in pain?" she asked, smoothing the blankets.
"No. But I'm so ill. I--I don't want to frighten you--"
"The doctor said you'd feel ill. It's the shock, you know."
She stroked his hand. He did indubitably look very ill. His appearance
of woe, despair, and dreadful apprehension was pitiable in the highest
degree. With a gesture of intense weariness he declined food, nor
could she persuade him to take anything whatever.
"You'll be ever so much better to-morrow. I'll sit up with you. You
were bound to feel worse in the night."
"It's more than shock that I've got," he muttered. "I say, Rachel,
it's all up with me. I _know_ I'm done for. You'll have to do the
best you can."
The notion shot through her head that possibly, after all, the doctor
might have misjudged the case. Suppose Louis were to die in the night?
Suppose the morning found her a widow? The world was full of the
strangest happenings.... Then she was herself again and immovably
cheerful in her secret heart. She thought: "I can go through worse
nights than this. One night, some time in the future, either he will
really be dying or I shall. This night is nothing." And she held his
hand and sat in her old place on his bed. The room was chilly. She
decided that in five minutes she would light the gas-stove, and also
make some tea with the spirit-lamp. She would have tea whether he
still refused or not. His watch on the night-table showed half-past
two. In about an hour the dawn would be commencing. She felt that she
had reserves of force against any contingency, against any nervous
strain.
Then he said, "I say, Rachel."
He was too ill to call her "Louise."
"I shall make some tea soon," she answered.
He went on: "You remember about that missing money--I mean before
auntie died. You remember--"
"Don't talk about that, dear," she interrupted him eagerly. "Why
should you bother about that now?"
In one instant those apparently exhaustless reserves of moral force
seemed to have ebbed away. She had imagined herself equal to any
contingency, and now there loomed a contingency which made her quail.
"I've got to talk about that," he said in his weak and desperate
voice. His bruised head was hollowed into the pillow, and he stared
monotonously at the ceiling, upon which the paper screen of the gas
threw a great trembling shadow. "That's why I wakened you. You don't
know what the inside of my brain's like.... Why did you say to them
you found the scullery door open that night? You know perfectly well
it wasn't open."
She could scarcely speak.
"I--I--Louis don't talk about that now. You're too ill," she implored.
"I know why you said it."
"Be quiet!" she said sharply, and her voice broke.
But he continued in the same tone--
"You made up that tale about the scullery door because you guessed
I'd collared the money and you wanted to save me from being suspected.
Well, I did collar the money! Now I've told you!"
She burst into a sob, and her head dropped on to his body.
"Louis!" she cried passionately, amid her sobs. "Why ever did you tell
me? You've ruined everything now. Everything!"
"I can't help that," said Louis, with a sort of obstinate and defiant
weariness. "It was on my mind, and I just had to tell you. You don't
seem to understand that I'm dying."
Rachel jumped up and sprang away from the bed.
"Of course you're not dying!" she reproached him. "How can you imagine
such things?"
Her heart suddenly hardened against him--against his white-bandaged
head and face, against his feeble voice of a beaten martyr. It seemed
to her disgraceful that he, a strong male creature, should be lying
there damaged, helpless, and under the foolish delusion that he was
dying. She recalled with bitter gusto the tone in which the doctor had
said, "He's no more dying than I am!" All her fears that the doctor
might be wrong had vanished away. She now resented her husband's
illness; as a nurse, when danger is over, will resent a patient's long
convalescence, somehow charging it to him as a sin.
"I found the other half of the notes under the chair on the--" Louis
began again.
"Please!" she objected with quick resounding violence, and raised a
hand.
He said--
"You must listen."
She answered, passionately--
"I won't listen! I won't listen! And if you don't stop I shall leave
the room! I shall leave you all alone!... Yes, I shall!" She moved a
little towards the door.
His gloomy and shifty glance followed her, and there was a short
silence.
"You needn't work yourself up into such a state," murmured Louis at
length. "But I _should_ like to know whether the scullery door
was open or not, when you came downstairs that night?"
Rachel's glance fell. She blushed. The tears had ceased to drop from
her eyes. She made no answer.
"You see," said Louis, with a half-sneering triumph, "I knew jolly
well it wasn't open. So did old Batchgrew know, too."
She shut her lips together, went decisively to the mantelpiece, struck
a match, and lit the stove. Like the patent gas-burner downstairs,
the stove often had to be extinguished after the first lighting and
lighted again with a second and different kind of explosion. And so
it was now. She flung down the match pettishly into the hearth.
Throughout the whole operation she sniffed convulsively, to prevent a
new fit of sobbing. Her peignoir being very near to the purple-green
flames that folded themselves round the asbestos of the stove, she
reflected that the material was probably inflammable, and that a
careless movement might cause it to be ignited. "And not a bad thing,
either!" she said to herself. Then, without looking at all towards
the bed, she lit the spirit-lamp in order to make tea. The sniffing
continued, as she went through the familiar procedure.
The water would not boil, demonstrating the cruel truth of proverbs.
She sat down and, gazing into the stove, now a rich red, ignored the
saucepan. The dry heat from the stove burnt her ankles and face. Not
a sound from the small saucepan, balanced on its tripod over the
wavering blue flame of the spirit-lamp! At last, uncontrollably
impatient, she lifted the teapot off the inverted lid of the saucepan,
where she had placed it to warm, and peered into the saucepan. The
water was cheerfully boiling! She made the tea, and sat down again to
wait until it should be infused. She had to judge the minutes as well
as she could, for she would not go across to the night-table to look
at Louis' watch; her own was out of order, and so was the clock. She
counted two hundred and fifty, and then, anticipating feverishly
the tonic glow of the tea in her breast, she poured out a cup. Only
colourless steaming water came forth from the pot. She had forgotten
to put in the tea! Misfortune not unfamiliar to dazed makers of tea in
the night! But to Rachel now the consequences of the omission seemed
to amount to a tragedy. Had she the courage to begin the interminable
weary process afresh? She was bound to begin it afresh. With her
eyes obscured by tears, she put the water back into the saucepan and
searched for the match-box. The water boiled almost immediately, and
by so doing comforted her.
While waiting for the infusion, she realized little by little that for
a few moments she must have been nearly hysterical, and she partially
resumed possession of herself. The sniffing ceased, her vision
cleared; she grew sardonic. All her chest was filled with cold lead.
"This truly is the end," she thought. She had thought that Julian's
confession must be the end of the violent experiences which had
befallen her in Mrs. Malden's house. Then she had thought that Louis'
accident must be the end. Each time she had been mistaken. But she
could not be mistaken now. No conceivable event, however awful,
could cap Louis' confession that he had thieved--and under such
circumstances!
She did not drink the first cup of tea. No! She must needs carry it,
spilling it, to Louis in bed. He was asleep, or he was in a condition
that resembled sleep. Assuredly he was ill. He made a dreadful object
in his bandages amid the disorder of the bed, upon which strong
shadows fell from the gas and from the stove. No matter! If he was
ill, he was ill. So much the worse for him! He was not dangerously
ill. He was merely passing through a stress which had to be passed
through. It would soon be over, and he would be the same eternal Louis
that he had always been.
"Here!" she said.
He stirred, opened his eyes.
"Here's some tea!" she said coldly. "Drink it."
He gave a gesture of dissent. But it was useless. She had brewed the
tea and had determined that he should drink a cup. Whether he desired
it or loathed it was a question irrelevant. He was appointed to
drink some tea, and she would not taste until he had drunk. This
self-sacrifice was her perverse pleasure.
"Come!... Please don't make it any more awkward for me."
With her right arm she raised the pillow and his head on it. He drank,
his sick lips curling awkwardly upon the rim of the cup, which
she held for him. When he had drunk, she put the cup down on the
night-table, and tidied his bed, as though he had been a naughty
child. And then she left him, and drank tea slowly, savouringly, by
herself in a chair near the dressing-table, out of the same cup.
VI
She had lied about the scullery door being open when she went
downstairs on the night of the disappearance of the bank-notes.
The scullery door had not been open. The lie was clumsy, futile,
ill-considered. It had burst out of the impulsiveness and generosity
of her nature. She had perceived that suspicion was falling, or might
fall, upon Louis Fores, and the sudden lie had flashed forth to defend
him. That she could ultimately be charged with having told the lie in
order to screen herself from suspicion had never once occurred to her.
And it did not even occur to her now as she sat perched uncomfortably
on the chair in the night of desolation. She was now deeply ashamed
of the lie--and she ought not to have been ashamed, for it was a lie
magnanimous and fine; she might rather have taken pride in it. She was
especially ashamed of her repetition of the lie on the following day
to Thomas Batchgrew, and of her ingenious embroidery upon it. She
hated to remember that she had wept violently in front of Thomas
Batchgrew when he had charged her with having a secret about the loss
of the notes. He must have well known that she was lying; he must
have suspected her of some complicity; and if later he had affected to
ignore all the awkward aspects of the episode it was only because he
wished to remain on good terms with Louis for his own ends.
Had she herself all the time suspected Louis? In the harsh realism
of the night hours she was not able positively to assert that she
had never suspected him until after Julian's confession had made her
think; but, on the other hand, she would not directly accuse herself
of having previously suspected him. The worst that she could say was
that she had been determined to believe him guiltless. She loved him;
she had wanted his love; she would permit nothing to prevent their
coming together; and so in her mind she had established his innocence
apparently beyond any overthrowing. She might have allowed herself
to surmise that in the early past he had been naughty, untrustworthy,
even wicked--but that was different, that did not concern her. His
innocence with regard to the bank-notes alone mattered. And she had
been genuinely convinced of it. A few moments before he kissed her for
the first time, she had been genuinely convinced of it. And after the
betrothal her conviction became permanent. She tried to scorn now the
passion which had blinded her. Mrs. Maldon, at any rate, must have
known that he was connected with the disappearance of the notes. In
the light of Louis' confession Rachel could see all that Mrs. Maldon
was implying in that last conversation between them.
So that she might win him she had been ready to throttle every doubt
of his honesty. But now the indubitable fact that he was a thief
seemed utterly monstrous and insupportable. And, moreover, his crime
was exceptionally cruel. Was it conceivable that he could so lightly
cause so much distress of spirit to a woman so aged, defenceless, and
kind? According to the doctor, the shock of the robbery had not been
the originating cause of Mrs. Maldon's death; but it might have been;
quite possibly it had hastened death.... Louis was not merely a thief;
he was a dastardly thief.
But even that in her eyes did not touch the full height of his
offence. The vilest quality in him was his capacity to seem innocent.
She could recall the exact tone in which he had exclaimed: "Would
you believe that old Batch practically accused me of stealing the
old lady's money?... Don't you think it's a shame?" The recollection
filled her with frigid anger. Her resentment of the long lie which he
had lived in her presence since their betrothal was tremendous in its
calm acrimony. A man who could behave as he had behaved would stop at
nothing, would be capable of all.
She contrasted his conduct with the grim candour of Julian Maldon,
whom she now admired. It was strange and dreadful that both the
cousins should be thieves; the prevalence of thieves in that family
gave her a shudder. But she could not judge Julian Maldon severely.
He did not appear to her as a real thief. He had committed merely an
indiscretion. It was his atonement that made her admire him. Though
she hated confessions, though she had burnt his exasperating document,
she nevertheless liked the manner of his atonement. Whereas she
contemned Louis for having confessed.
"He thought he was dying and so he confessed!" she reflected with
asperity. "He hadn't even the pluck to go through with what he had
begun.... Ah! If I had committed a crime and once denied it, I would
deny it with my last breath, and no torture should drag it out of me!"
And she thought: "I am punished. This is my punishment for letting
myself be engaged while Mrs. Maldon was dying."
Often she had dismissed as childish the notion that she was to blame
for accepting Louis just when she did. But now it returned full of
power and overwhelmed her. And like a whipped child she remembered
Mrs. Maldon's warning: "My nephew is not to be trusted. The woman
who married him would suffer horribly." And she was the woman who had
married him. It seemed to her that the warnings of the dying must of
necessity prove to be valid.
Some mysterious phenomenon on the window-blind at her right hand
attracted her attention, and she looked round, half startled. It was
the dawn, furtive and inexorable. She had watched dawns, and she had
watched them in that very bedroom. Only on the previous morning the
dawn had met her smarting and wakeful eyes, and she had imagined that
no dawn could be more profoundly sad!... And a little earlier still
she had been desolating herself for hours because Louis was going to
be careless about his investments, because he was unreliable and she
would have to watch ceaselessly over his folly. She had imagined then
that no greater catastrophe could overtake her than some material
result of his folly!... What a trivial apprehension! What a child she
had been!
In the excitement and alarm of his accident she had honestly forgotten
her suspicions of him. That disconcerted her.
She rose from the chair, stiff. The stove, with its steady faint
roar of imperfectly consumed gas, had thoroughly heated the room. In
careful silence she put the tea-things together. Then she ventured to
glance at Louis. He was asleep. He had been restlessly asleep for a
long time. She eyed him bitterly in his bandages. Only last night
she had been tormented by that fear that his face might be marked
for life. Again the trivial! What did it matter whether his face was
marked for life or not?...
It did not occur to her to attempt to realize how intense must have
been the spiritual tribulation which had forced him to confess. She
knew that he was not dying, that he was in no danger whatever, and
she was perfectly indifferent to the genuineness of his own conviction
that he was dying. She simply thought: "He had to go through all that.
If he fancied he was dying, can I help it?" ... Then she looked at her
own empty bed. He reposed; he slept. But she did not repose nor sleep.
She drew aside one of the blinds, and as she did so she could feel the
steady slight current of cold air entering the room from the window
open at the top. The street seemed to be full of daylight. The dawn
had been proceeding in its vast secrecy and was now accomplished.
She drew up the blind slowly, and then the gas-flame over the
dressing-table seemed so pale and futile that she extinguished it,
from a sort of pity. In silence she pulled out the iron bolts in the
window-sash that had been Mrs. Maldon's device for preventing burglars
from opening further a window already open a little, thus combining
security with good hygiene. Louis had laughed at these bolts, but Mrs.
Maldon had so instilled their use into both Rachel and Mrs. Tams that
to insert them at night was part of the unchangeable routine of the
house. Rachel gently pushed up the lower sash and looked forth.
Bycars Lane, though free from mud, was everywhere heavily bedewed. The
narrow pavement glistened. The roofs glistened. Drops of water hung
on all the edges of the great gas-lamp beneath her, which was still
defying the dawn. The few miserable trees and bushes on the vague
lands beyond the lane were dripping with water. The sky was low and
heavy, in scarcely distinguishable shades of purplish grey, and Bycars
Pool, of which she had a glimpse, appeared in its smooth blackness to
be not more wet than the rest of the scene. Nothing stirred. Not the
tiniest branch stirred on the leafless trees, nor a leaf on a grey
rhododendron-bush in a front garden below. Every window within sight
had its blind drawn. No smoke rose from any house-chimney, and the
distant industrial smoke on the horizon hung in the lower air, just
under the clouds, undecided and torpid. The wet air was moveless, and
yet she could feel it impinging with its cool, sharp humidity on her
cheek.
The sensation of this contact was delicious. She was surrounded, not
by the slatternly Five Towns landscape and by the wretchedness of the
familiar bedroom, but by the unanswerable, intimidating, inspiring
mystery of life itself. A man came hurrying with a pole out of the
western vista of the lane, and stopped in front of the gas-lamp, and
in an instant the flame was reduced to a little fat worm of blue, and
the man passed swiftly up the lane, looking straight ahead with bent
shoulders, and was gone. Never before had Rachel actually seen the
lamp put out. Never before had she noticed, as she noticed now, that
the lamp had a number, an identity--1054. The meek acquiescence of
the lamp, and the man's preoccupied haste, seemed to bear some deep
significance, which, however, she could not seize. But the aspect of
the man afflicted her, she did not know why.
Then a number of other figures, in a long spasmodic procession, passed
up the lane after the man, and were gone out of sight. Their heavy
boots clacked on the pavement. They wore thick, dirty greyish-black
clothes, but no overcoats; small tight caps in their hands, and dark
kerchiefs round their necks: about thirty of them in all, colliers
on their way to one of the pits on the Moorthorne ridge. They walked
quickly, but they did not hurry as their forerunner hurried. Several
of them smoked pipes. Though some walked in pairs, none spoke; none
looked up or aside. With one man walked stolidly a young woman, her
overskirt raised and pulled round her head from the back for a shawl;
but even these two did not converse. The procession closed with one or
two stragglers. Rachel had never seen these pilgrims before, but she
had heard them; and Mrs. Maldon had been acquainted with all their
footfalls. They were tragic to Rachel; they infected her with the most
recondite horror of existence; they left tragedy floating behind them
in the lane like an invisible but oppressive cloud. Their utterly
incurious indifference to Rachel in her peignoir at the window was
somehow harrowing.
The dank lane and vaporous, stagnant landscape were once more dead and
silent, and would for a long time remain so, for though potters begin
work early, colliers begin work much earlier, living in a world of
customs of their own. At last a thin column of smoke issued magically
from a chimney down to the left. Some woman was about; some woman's
day had opened within that house. At the thought of that unseen woman
in that unknown house Rachel could have cried. She could not remain at
the window. She was unhappy; but it was not her woe that overcame her,
for if she was unhappy, her unhappiness was nevertheless exquisite.
It was the mere realization that men and women lived that rendered her
emotions almost insupportable. She felt her youth. She thought, "I am
only a girl, and yet my life is ruined already." And even that thought
she hugged amorously as though it were beautiful. Amid the full
disaster and regret, she was glad to be alive. She could not help
exulting in the dreadful moment.
She closed the sash and began to dress, seldom glancing at Louis,
who slept and dreamed and muttered. When she was dressed she looked
carefully in the drawer where he deposited certain articles from his
pockets, in order to find the bundle of notes left by Julian. In vain!
Then she searched for his bunch of keys (which ultimately she found
in one of his pockets) and unlocked his private drawer. The bundle
of notes lay there. She removed it, and hid it away in one of her
own secret places. After she had made preparations to get ready some
invalid's food at short notice, she went downstairs.
VII
She went downstairs without any definite purpose--merely because
activity of some kind was absolutely necessary to her. The clock
in the lobby showed dimly a quarter past five. In the chilly twilit
kitchen the green-lined silver-basket lay on the table in front of the
window, placed there by a thoughtful and conscientious Mrs. Tams. On
the previous morning Rachel had given very precise orders about the
silver (as the workaday electro-plate was called), but owing to the
astounding events of the day the orders had not been executed. Mrs.
Tams had evidently determined to carry them out at an early hour.
Rachel opened a cupboard and drew forth the apparatus for cleaning.
She was intensely fatigued, weary, and seemingly spiritless, but she
began to clean the silver--at first with energy and then with serious
application. She stood at the table, cleaning, as she had stood there
when Louis came into her kitchen on the night of the robbery; and she
thought of his visit and of her lost bliss, and the tears fell
from her eyes on the newspaper which protected the whiteness of the
scrubbed table. She would not think of the future; could not. She went
on cleaning, and that silver had never been cleaned as she cleaned it
then. She cleaned it with every attribute of herself, forgetting her
fatigue. The tears dried on her cheek. The faithful, scrupulous work
either drugged or solaced her. Just as she was finishing, Mrs. Tarns,
with her immense bodice unfastened, came downstairs, apronless. The
lobby clock struck six.
"Eh, missis!" breathed Mrs. Tams. "What's this?"
Rachel gave a nervous laugh.
"I was up. Mr. Fores was asleep, and I had to do something, so I
thought--"
"Has he had a good night, ma'am?"
"Fair. Yes, pretty good. I must run up and see if he is awake."
Mrs. Tams saw the stains on Rachel's cheeks, but she could not mention
them. Rachel had an impulse to fall on Mrs. Tams' enormous breast and
weep. But the conventions of domesticity were far too strong for
her also. Mrs. Tams was the general servant; what Louis occasionally
called "the esteemed skivvy." Once Mrs. Tams had been wife, mother,
grandmother, victim, slave, diplomatist, serpent, heroine. Once she
had bent from morn till night under the terrific weight of a million
perils and responsibilities. Once she could never be sure of her next
meal, or the roof over her head, or her skin, or even her bones. Once
she had been the last resource and refuge not merely of a house, but
of half a street, and she had had a remedy for every ill, a balm
for every wound. But now she was safe, out of harm's way. She had no
responsibilities worth a rap. She had everything an old woman ought
to desire. And yet the silly old woman felt a lack, as she impotently
watched Rachel leave the kitchen. Perhaps she wanted her eye blacked,
or the menace of a policeman, or a child down with diphtheria, to
remind her that the world revolved.