“You’d never understand.” And then, with an effort—“I’ll go, Anita. I’m
going. I’d better go.”
Without waiting for her answer he went across the room to the little
sofa near me where the hats and coats lay piled. I heard him fumbling
for his things.
But Anita went back to the others. The watching group seemed to open to
receive, to enclose her. Her head had touched the lamp as she passed
under it, and set it swaying wildly, so that I could scarcely see their
faces in that shift of light and shadow through the thickened air. But I
heard her angry laugh, and her voice overtopping the murmur—“Mad! He was
always mad! If he weren’t such an old friend——” And then the Baxter
girl’s voice—“Think of the sketches there must be!” And Miss Howe—“What
I say is—you don’t want to quarrel!” And hers again—“Did you hear him?
_I_ not understand Madala! Mad, I tell you! If I don’t know Madala——”
It was at that moment that I looked up and saw a woman standing in the
doorway.
“Anita!” I murmured warningly. But my voice did not reach her, and
indeed, she and the little gesticulating group in the further room
seemed suddenly far away. The air had been thickening for the last hour,
and now, with the opening of the door, the fog itself came billowing in
on either side of the newcomer as water streams past a ship. It flooded
the room, soundlessly, almost, I remember thinking, purposefully, as if
it would have islanded us, Kent and me. It affected me curiously. I felt
muffled. I knew I ought to get up and call again to Anita or attend to
the visitor myself, but the quiet seemed to dull my wits. I found myself
placidly wondering who she was and why she did not come in; but I made
no movement to welcome her. I just sat still and stared.
She was a tall girl—woman—for either word fitted her: she had brown
hair. She was dressed in—I should have said, if you had asked me, that I
could remember every detail, and I can in my own mind; but when I try to
write it down, it blurs. But I know that there was blue in her dress,
and bright colours. It must have been some flowered stuff. She
looked—it’s a silly phrase—but she looked like a spring day. I wanted
her to come into the room and drive away the fog that was making me
blink and feel dizzy. There was a gold ring on her finger: yes, and her
hands were beautiful—strong, white hands. In one she held the brass
candle-stick that stood in the hall, and with the other she sheltered
the weak flame from the draught. Yet not only with her hand. Her arm was
crooked maternally, her shoulder thrust forward, her hip raised, in a
gesture magnificently protecting, as though the new-lit tallow-end were
fire from heaven. Her whole body seemed sacredly involved in an act of
guardianship. But half the glory of her pose—and it was lovely enough to
make me catch my breath—was its unconsciousness; for her attention was
all ours. Her eyes, as she listened to the group by the hearth, were
sparkling with amusement and that tolerant, deep affection that one
keeps for certain dearest, foolish friends. It was evident that she knew
them well.
“Can’t you keep that door shut, Jenny? The draught——”
Anita’s back was towards me. Her voice, as she spoke over her shoulder,
rang high, muffled, imperious, and—I laughed. In a flash the stranger’s
eyes were on me, and I found myself thrilling where I sat, absurdly
startled for the moment, because—she knew me too! She knew me quite
well. She was smiling at me, not vaguely as who should say—‘Oh, surely
I’ve seen you somewhere?’ but with intimate, disturbing knowledge. It
was the glance that a doctor gives you, the swift, acquainted glance
that, without offence, deciphers you. I was not offended either, only
curious and—attracted. She looked so friendly. I half began to say—‘But
when? but where?’ but her bearing overruled me. Her mouth was pursed
conspiratorially: if her hand had been free she would have put a finger
to her lip. I smiled back at her, flattered to be partner in her
uncomprehended secret. But I was curious—oh, I was curious! It was
incredible to me that Anita and the rest should stand, subduing their
voices to the soft, thick stillness that she and the fog between them
had brought into the room, and yet remain unconscious of her vivid
presence. I was longing to see their faces when they should at last turn
and see her, and yet, if you understand, I was afraid lest they should
turn too soon and break the pleasant numbness that was upon me. And upon
them—the spell was upon them too. It was the look in her eyes, not
glamorous, but kind. It healed. It passed like a drowse across the
squabblers at the table: it stilled Anita’s feverish monologue. Indeed
the room had grown very still. There was no sound left in it but the
slurring of the lamp. It rested upon Kent as he stood in dumb misery,
and I watched the strained lines of his body slacken and grow easier
beneath it. At that—at that ease she gave him—suddenly I loved her.
And as if I had spoken, as if I had touched her with my hand, her eyes,
that had grown heavy with his trouble, turned, brightening, upon me, as
if I were the answer to a problem, the lifting of a care. But what the
problem was I could not then tell; for, staring as she made me—as she
made me—into her divining eyes, I saw in them not her thought but my own
at last made clear to me—my dream, my hope, my will and my desire,
newborn and naked, and, I swear it, bodiless to me before that night and
that hour. It was too soon. I was not ready. It shamed me and I
flinched, my glance wandering helplessly away like a dog’s when you have
forced it to look at you. And so noticed, idly, uncomprehending at
first, and then with a stiffening of my whole body, that her hand did
not show as other hands, blood-red against the light she screened, but
coldly luminous, like the fingers of a cloud through which the moon is
shining: and that her breast was motionless, unstirred by any breath.
Then I was afraid.
I felt my skin rising. I felt my bones grow cold. I could not move. I
could not breathe. I could not think.
A voice came out of the fog that had thickened to a wall between the
rooms—a voice, thin, remote, like a trunk call—
“_Can’t_ you keep that door shut, Jenny? The draught——” and was cut off
again by the sudden crash of an overturned chair. There was a rush and a
cry—a madman’s voice, shouting, screaming, groaning—
“Madala Grey! My God, Madala Grey!” and Kent’s huge body, hurling
against the door, pitched and fell heavily.
For the door was shut.
I ran to him. He was shaken and half stunned, but he struggled to his
feet. It was dreadful to see him. He was like a frightened horse,
shivering and sweating. His lips were loose and he muttered unevenly as
if the words came without his will. I caught them as I helped him; the
same words—always the same words.
I got him to the sofa while the rest of them crowded and clamoured, and
then I found myself taking command. I made them keep off. I sent Anita
for water and a towel and I bathed his forehead where he had cut it on
the moulding of the door. Mr. Flood wanted to send for a doctor, but I
wouldn’t have it. I knew how he would hate it. Then someone—the Baxter
girl, I think—giggled hysterically and said something about a black eye
tomorrow, and then—“How did it happen?” “Did you see, Miss Summer?” And
at that they all began to clamour again like an orchestra after a solo,
repeating in all their voices—“Yes, what happened? What on earth was it?
Did you see him? Some sort of a seizure? I told you twice to shut that
door. The draught——Are you better now, old man? Kent—what happened?”
They were crowding round him again. He pointed a shaking finger.
“She saw,” he said. “She knows——”
“Jenny?” Anita turned on me sharply, an employer addressing a servant at
fault. “Oh, of course—you were in here too. What happened then?”