Oleron knew very well what Elsie had meant when she had said that her
next visit would be preceded by a postcard. She, too, had realised that
at last, at last he knew--knew, and didn't want her. It gave him a
miserable, pitiful pang, therefore, when she came again within a week,
knocking at the door unannounced. She spoke from the landing; she did not
intend to stay, she said; and he had to press her before she would so
much as enter.
Her excuse for calling was that she had heard of an inquiry for short
stories that he might be wise to follow up. He thanked her. Then, her
business over, she seemed anxious to get away again. Oleron did not seek
to detain her; even he saw through the pretext of the stories; and he
accompanied her down the stairs.
But Elsie Bengough had no luck whatever in that house. A second accident
befell her. Half-way down the staircase there was the sharp sound of
splintering wood, and she checked a loud cry. Oleron knew the woodwork to
be old, but he himself had ascended and descended frequently enough
without mishap....
Elsie had put her foot through one of the stairs.
He sprang to her side in alarm.
"Oh, I say! My poor girl!"
She laughed hysterically.
"It's my weight--I know I'm getting fat--"
"Keep still--let me clear these splinters away," he muttered between his
teeth.
She continued to laugh and sob that it was her weight--she was getting
fat--
He thrust downwards at the broken boards. The extrication was no easy
matter, and her torn boot showed him how badly the foot and ankle
within it must be abraded.
"Good God--good God!" he muttered over and over again.
"I shall be too heavy for anything soon," she sobbed and laughed.
But she refused to reascend and to examine her hurt.
"No, let me go quickly--let me go quickly," she repeated.
"But it's a frightful gash!"
"No--not so bad--let me get away quickly--I'm--I'm not wanted."
At her words, that she was not wanted, his head dropped as if she had
given him a buffet.
"Elsie!" he choked, brokenly and shocked.
But she too made a quick gesture, as if she put something violently
aside.
"Oh, Paul, not _that_--not _you_--of course I do mean that too in a
sense--oh, you know what I mean!... But if the other can't be, spare
me this now! I--I wouldn't have come, but--but--oh, I did, I _did_ try to
keep away!"
It was intolerable, heartbreaking; but what could he do--what could he
say? He did not love her...
"Let me go--I'm not wanted--let me take away what's left of me--"
"Dear Elsie--you are very dear to me--"
But again she made the gesture, as of putting something violently aside.
"No, not that--not anything less--don't offer me anything less--leave me
a little pride--"
"Let me get my hat and coat--let me take you to a doctor," he muttered.
But she refused. She refused even the support of his arm. She gave
another unsteady laugh.
"I'm sorry I broke your stairs, Paul.... You will go and see about the
short stories, won't you?"
He groaned.
"Then if you won't see a doctor, will you go across the square and let
Mrs. Barrett look at you? Look, there's Barrett passing now--"
The long-nosed Barrett was looking curiously down the alley, but as
Oleron was about to call him he made off without a word. Elsie seemed
anxious for nothing so much as to be clear of the place, and finally
promised to go straight to a doctor, but insisted on going alone.
"Good-bye," she said.
And Oleron watched her until she was past the hatchet-like "To Let"
boards, as if he feared that even they might fall upon her and maim her.
That night Oleron did not dine. He had far too much on his mind. He
walked from room to room of his flat, as if he could have walked away
from Elsie Bengough's haunting cry that still rang in his ears. "I'm
not wanted--don't offer me anything less--let me take away what's left
of me--"
Oh, if he could only have persuaded himself that he loved her!
He walked until twilight fell, then, without lighting candles, he stirred
up the fire and flung himself into a chair.
Poor, poor Elsie!...
But even while his heart ached for her, it was out of the question.
If only he had known! If only he had used common observation! But
those walks, those sisterly takings of the arm--what a fool he had
been!... Well, it was too late now. It was she, not he, who must now
act--act by keeping away. He would help her all he could. He himself
would not sit in her presence. If she came, he would hurry her out again
as fast as he could.... Poor, poor Elsie!
His room grew dark; the fire burned dead; and he continued to sit,
wincing from time to time as a fresh tortured phrase rang again in his
ears.
Then suddenly, he knew not why, he found himself anxious for her in a new
sense--uneasy about her personal safety. A horrible fancy that even then
she might be looking over an embankment down into dark water, that she
might even now be glancing up at the hook on the door, took him. Women
had been known to do those things.... Then there would be an inquest, and
he himself would be called upon to identify her, and would be asked how
she had come by an ill-healed wound on the hand and a bad abrasion of the
ankle. Barrett would say that he had seen her leaving his house....
Then he recognised that his thoughts were morbid. By an effort of will he
put them aside, and sat for a while listening to the faint creakings
and tickings and rappings within his panelling.... If only he could have
married her!... But he couldn't. Her face had risen before him again
as he had seen it on the stairs, drawn with pain and ugly and swollen
with tears. Ugly--yes, positively blubbered; if tears were women's
weapons, as they were said to be, such tears were weapons turned against
themselves ... suicide again....
Then all at once he found himself attentively considering her two
accidents.
Extraordinary they had been, both of them. He _could not_ have left that
old nail standing in the wood; why, he had fetched tools specially from
the kitchen; and he was convinced that that step that had broken beneath
her weight had been as sound as the others. It was inexplicable. If these
things could happen, anything could happen. There was not a beam nor a
jamb in the place that might not fall without warning, not a plank that
might not crash inwards, not a nail that might not become a dagger. The
whole place was full of life even now; as he sat there in the dark he
heard its crowds of noises as if the house had been one great
microphone....
Only half conscious that he did so, he had been sitting for some time
identifying these noises, attributing to each crack or creak or knock its
material cause; but there was one noise which, again not fully conscious
of the omission, he had not sought to account for. It had last come some
minutes ago; it came again now--a sort of soft sweeping rustle that
seemed to hold an almost inaudibly minute crackling. For half a minute or
so it had Oleron's attention; then his heavy thoughts were of Elsie
Bengough again.
He was nearer to loving her in that moment than he had ever been. He
thought how to some men their loved ones were but the dearer for those
poor mortal blemishes that tell us we are but sojourners on earth, with a
common fate not far distant that makes it hardly worth while to do
anything but love for the time remaining. Strangling sobs, blearing
tears, bodies buffeted by sickness, hearts and mind callous and hard with
the rubs of the world--how little love there would be were these things a
barrier to love! In that sense he did love Elsie Bengough. What her
happiness had never moved in him her sorrow almost awoke....
Suddenly his meditation went. His ear had once more become conscious
of that soft and repeated noise--the long sweep with the almost
inaudible crackle in it. Again and again it came, with a curious
insistence and urgency. It quickened a little as he became increasingly
attentive ... it seemed to Oleron that it grew louder....
All at once he started bolt upright in his chair, tense and listening.
The silky rustle came again; he was trying to attach it to something....
The next moment he had leapt to his feet, unnerved and terrified. His
chair hung poised for a moment, and then went over, setting the
fire-irons clattering as it fell. There was only one noise in the world
like that which had caused him to spring thus to his feet....
The next time it came Oleron felt behind him at the empty air with his
hand, and backed slowly until he found himself against the wall.
"God in Heaven!" The ejaculation broke from Oleron's lips. The sound had
ceased.
The next moment he had given a high cry.
"What is it? What's there? _Who's_ there?"
A sound of scuttling caused his knees to bend under him for a moment; but
that, he knew, was a mouse. That was not something that his stomach
turned sick and his mind reeled to entertain. That other sound, the like
of which was not in the world, had now entirely ceased; and again he
called....
He called and continued to call; and then another terror, a terror of the
sound of his own voice, seized him. He did not dare to call again. His
shaking hand went to his pocket for a match, but found none. He thought
there might be matches on the mantelpiece--
He worked his way to the mantelpiece round a little recess, without for a
moment leaving the wall. Then his hand encountered the mantelpiece, and
groped along it. A box of matches fell to the hearth. He could just see
them in the firelight, but his hand could not pick them up until he had
cornered them inside the fender.
Then he rose and struck a light.
The room was as usual. He struck a second match. A candle stood on the
table. He lighted it, and the flame sank for a moment and then burned up
clear. Again he looked round.
There was nothing.
There was nothing; but there had been something, and might still be
something. Formerly, Oleron had smiled at the fantastic thought that,
by a merging and interplay of identities between himself and his
beautiful room, he might be preparing a ghost for the future; it had not
occurred to him _that there might have been a similar merging and
coalescence in the past_. Yet with this staggering impossibility he was
now face to face. Something did persist in the house; it had a tenant
other than himself; and that tenant, whatsoever or whosoever, had
appalled Oleron's soul by producing the sound of a woman brushing her
hair.