Without quite knowing how he came to be there Oleron found himself
striding over the loose board he had temporarily placed on the step
broken by Miss Bengough. He was hatless, and descending the stairs. Not
until later did there return to him a hazy memory that he had left the
candle burning on the table, had opened the door no wider than was
necessary to allow the passage of his body, and had sidled out, closing
the door softly behind him. At the foot of the stairs another shock
awaited him. Something dashed with a flurry up from the disused cellars
and disappeared out of the door. It was only a cat, but Oleron gave a
childish sob.
He passed out of the gate, and stood for a moment under the "To Let"
boards, plucking foolishly at his lip and looking up at the glimmer
of light behind one of his red blinds. Then, still looking over his
shoulder, he moved stumblingly up the square. There was a small
public-house round the corner; Oleron had never entered it; but he
entered it now, and put down a shilling that missed the counter by
inches.
"B--b--bran--brandy," he said, and then stooped to look for the shilling.
He had the little sawdusted bar to himself; what company there
was--carters and labourers and the small tradesmen of the
neighbourhood--was gathered in the farther compartment, beyond the space
where the white-haired landlady moved among her taps and bottles. Oleron
sat down on a hardwood settee with a perforated seat, drank half his
brandy, and then, thinking he might as well drink it as spill it,
finished it.
Then he fell to wondering which of the men whose voices he heard across
the public-house would undertake the removal of his effects on the
morrow.
In the meantime he ordered more brandy.
For he did not intend to go back to that room where he had left the
candle burning. Oh no! He couldn't have faced even the entry and the
staircase with the broken step--certainly not that pith-white,
fascinating room. He would go back for the present to his old
arrangement, of workroom and separate sleeping-quarters; he would
go to his old landlady at once--presently--when he had finished his
brandy--and see if she could put him up for the night. His glass was
empty now....
He rose, had it refilled, and sat down again.
And if anybody asked his reason for removing again? Oh, he had reason
enough--reason enough! Nails that put themselves back into wood again
and gashed people's hands, steps that broke when you trod on them, and
women who came into a man's place and brushed their hair in the dark,
were reasons enough! He was querulous and injured about it all. He had
taken the place for himself, not for invisible women to brush their
hair in; that lawyer fellow in Lincoln's Inn should be told so, too,
before many hours were out; it was outrageous, letting people in for
agreements like that!
A cut-glass partition divided the compartment where Oleron sat from the
space where the white-haired landlady moved; but it stopped seven or
eight inches above the level of the counter. There was no partition at
the farther bar. Presently Oleron, raising his eyes, saw that faces were
watching him through the aperture. The faces disappeared when he looked
at them.
He moved to a corner where he could not be seen from the other bar; but
this brought him into line with the white-haired landlady.
She knew him by sight--had doubtless seen him passing and repassing; and
presently she made a remark on the weather. Oleron did not know what he
replied, but it sufficed to call forth the further remark that the winter
had been a bad one for influenza, but that the spring weather seemed to
be coming at last.... Even this slight contact with the commonplace
steadied Oleron a little; an idle, nascent wonder whether the landlady
brushed her hair every night, and, if so, whether it gave out those
little electric cracklings, was shut down with a snap; and Oleron was
better....
With his next glass of brandy he was all for going back to his flat. Not
go back? Indeed, he would go back! They should very soon see whether he
was to be turned out of his place like that! He began to wonder why he
was doing the rather unusual thing he was doing at that moment, unusual
for him--sitting hatless, drinking brandy, in a public-house. Suppose he
were to tell the white-haired landlady all about it--to tell her that a
caller had scratched her hand on a nail, had later had the bad luck to
put her foot through a rotten stair, and that he himself, in an old house
full of squeaks and creaks and whispers, had heard a minute noise and had
bolted from it in fright--what would she think of him? That he was mad,
of course.... Pshaw! The real truth of the matter was that he hadn't been
doing enough work to occupy him. He had been dreaming his days away,
filling his head with a lot of moonshine about a new _Romilly_ (as if the
old one was not good enough), and now he was surprised that the devil
should enter an empty head!
Yes, he would go back. He would take a walk in the air first--he hadn't
walked enough lately--and then he would take himself in hand, settle
the hash of that sixteenth chapter of _Romilly_ (fancy, he had actually
been fool enough to think of destroying fifteen chapters!) and
thenceforward he would remember that he had obligations to his fellow-men
and work to do in the world. There was the matter in a nutshell.
He finished his brandy and went out.
He had walked for some time before any other bearing of the matter than
that on himself occurred to him. At first, the fresh air had increased
the heady effect of the brandy he had drunk; but afterwards his mind grew
clearer than it had been since morning. And the clearer it grew, the less
final did his boastful self-assurances become, and the firmer his
conviction that, when all explanations had been made, there remained
something that could not be explained. His hysteria of an hour before had
passed; he grew steadily calmer; but the disquieting conviction remained.
A deep fear took possession of him. It was a fear for Elsie.
For something in his place was inimical to her safety. Of themselves, her
two accidents might not have persuaded him of this; but she herself had
said it. "_I'm not wanted here_..." And she had declared that there was
something wrong with the place. She had seen it before he had. Well and
good. One thing stood out clearly: namely, that if this was so, she must
be kept away for quite another reason than that which had so confounded
and humiliated Oleron. Luckily she had expressed her intention of staying
away; she must be held to that intention. He must see to it.
And he must see to it all the more that he now saw his first impulse,
never to set foot in the place again, was absurd. People did not do that
kind of thing. With Elsie made secure, he could not with any respect to
himself suffer himself to be turned out by a shadow, nor even by a danger
merely because it was a danger. He had to live somewhere, and he would
live there. He must return.
He mastered the faint chill of fear that came with the decision, and
turned in his walk abruptly. Should fear grow on him again he would,
perhaps, take one more glass of brandy....
But by the time he reached the short street that led to the square he was
too late for more brandy. The little public-house was still lighted, but
closed, and one or two men were standing talking on the kerb. Oleron
noticed that a sudden silence fell on them as he passed, and he noticed
further that the long-nosed Barrett, whom he passed a little lower down,
did not return his good-night. He turned in at the broken gate, hesitated
merely an instant in the alley, and then mounted his stairs again.
Only an inch of candle remained in the Sheffield stick, and Oleron did
not light another one. Deliberately he forced himself to take it up and
to make the tour of his five rooms before retiring. It was as he returned
from the kitchen across his little hall that he noticed that a letter lay
on the floor. He carried it into his sitting-room, and glanced at the
envelope before opening it.
It was unstamped, and had been put into the door by hand. Its handwriting
was clumsy, and it ran from beginning to end without comma or period.
Oleron read the first line, turned to the signature, and then finished
the letter.
It was from the man Barrett, and it informed Oleron that he, Barrett,
would be obliged if Mr. Oleron would make other arrangements for the
preparing of his breakfasts and the cleaning-out of his place. The sting
lay in the tail, that is to say, the postscript. This consisted of a text
of Scripture. It embodied an allusion that could only be to Elsie
Bengough....
A seldom-seen frown had cut deeply into Oleron's brow. So! That was it!
Very well; they would see about that on the morrow.... For the rest, this
seemed merely another reason why Elsie should keep away....
Then his suppressed rage broke out....
The foul-minded lot! The devil himself could not have given a leer at
anything that had ever passed between Paul Oleron and Elsie Bengough,
yet this nosing rascal must be prying and talking!...
Oleron crumpled the paper up, held it in the candle flame, and then
ground the ashes under his heel.
One useful purpose, however, the letter had served: it had created in
Oleron a wrathful blaze that effectually banished pale shadows.
Nevertheless, one other puzzling circumstance was to close the day. As he
undressed, he chanced to glance at his bed. The coverlets bore an impress
as if somebody had lain on them. Oleron could not remember that he
himself had lain down during the day--off-hand, he would have said that
certainly he had not; but after all he could not be positive. His
indignation for Elsie, acting possibly with the residue of the brandy in
him, excluded all other considerations; and he put out his candle, lay
down, and passed immediately into a deep and dreamless sleep, which, in
the absence of Mrs. Barrett's morning call, lasted almost once round the
clock.