Margery Byrne walked home very happily from the Underground Station at
Stamford Brook, The ticket collector uttered a reverent "Good night,
mum"; the policeman at the corner of St. Peter's Square brightened
suddenly at her and saluted with the imperishable manner of past
military service. The world was very kind and friendly, she felt. But
that was the usual manner of the world to Margery Byrne. The world
invariably looked at her as it passed her in the street. The male world
invariably looked again. The mannerless male world usually looked back.
The shameless male world stared at her in Tubes and manoeuvred
obviously for commanding positions. But that part of the world, having
secured its positions, was generally either disappointed or abashed.
There was an aspect of fragility and virtue about her which stirred in
the bold and shameless male the almost atrophied instincts of chivalry
and protection. After a little they ceased to stare, but opened doors
for her with a conscious knighthood. There are women who make a man feel
evil at the sight of them. Margery made a man feel good.
But this aspect of fragility was without any suggestion of feebleness.
It was just that she was slight and fair, and her face small and her
features intensely delicate and refined. She had a rarefied look--as if
all flaws and imperfections and superfluities had been somehow
chemically removed, leaving only the essential stamina and grace. For
she had stamina. She walked with an easy un-urban swing, and she could
walk a long way. Her lips were little and slightly anæmic, but firm.
There was an evident will in the determined and perfectly proportioned
chin. The nose was small but admirably straight and set very close above
the mouth. Only her large blue eyes seemed a little out of proportion,
but these suggested a warm sympathy which the smallness of her features
might otherwise have concealed. Her head, balanced attractively on
straight white shoulders, was covered gloriously, if a little thinly,
with hair of a light gold, an indescribable tint not often encountered
outside the world of books. But such, in fact, was Margery's hair. Her
skin also was of a colour and texture not to be painted in words--it had
that indefinable quality for which there has been discovered no better
name than transparent. And this pale, almost colourless quality of
complexion completed the effect of fragility, of physical refinement.
It was still and sultry in St. Peter's Square. The old moon hung above
the church and lit up the ridiculous stone eagles on the decayed and
pompous houses on Margery's right. "Like lecterns," she thought, for the
thousandth time.
The houses were square and semi-detached, two in one; a life-size eagle
perched over every porch, its neck screwed tragically towards its
sister-eagle craning sympathetically on the neighbouring porch, seeking
apparently for ever a never-to-be-attained communion. What sort of
people lived there, Margery wondered, and why? So far from town and no
view of the river, no special attraction. The people of The Chase always
wondered in this way as they walked through St. Peter's Square. The
problems of who lived in it and why were permanently insoluble since
nobody who lived in The Chase knew anybody who lived in the Square. They
knew each other, and that was enough. They knew it was worth while
travelling a long way if you lived in The Chase, because of the river,
the views, the openness, and the fine old rambling, rickety houses. But
why should any one live in an inland square with eagles over the front
doors?
Margery did not know. And she had other things to think of. Tomorrow she
must speak seriously to Emily. Emily, like all these young women, had
started excellently, but was becoming slack. And impertinent, sometimes.
But one must be careful. Just now was not the time to frighten her
away. Then Trueman's man was coming for the curtains in the morning;
they must be got ready. And there was a mountain of needlework to be
done. And she must run through Stephen's clothes again--before she was
too ill for it. Only a month more now, perhaps less. That was a
blessing. She was not frightened this time--not like the first time,
with little Joan--that _had_ been rather terrifying--not knowing quite
what it was like. But it was a long, interminable business; for such
ages, it seemed, you had to "be careful," not play tennis, or go out to
dinner just when you wanted to. You felt a fool sometimes, inventing
reasons for not doing things, when of course there was only one reason.
And so ugly--especially in London ... going about in shops ... and
Tubes.
Never mind. It was worth it. And afterwards....
Margery cast her mind deliciously forward to that "afterwards." They
would all go away somewhere, her dear Stephen and Joan and a new and
adorable little Stephen. She was determined that it should be a boy this
time. That was what Stephen wanted, and what he wanted, within reason,
he should have. He deserved it, the dear man. Really, he was becoming an
amazingly perfect husband. Becoming, yes--for just at first he had been
difficult. But that was during the war; they had seen so little of each
other--and he was always worried, overworked. But now they had really
"settled down," the horrid war was done with, and he had been too
wonderfully delightful and nice to her. Lately especially. Much more
considerate and helpful and--and, yes, demonstrative. She felt more sure
of him. She was appalled, sometimes, to think how essential he was to
her, how frightfully dependent she had become on the existence of this
one man, met quite by chance, or what was called chance, at somebody
else's house. If anything should happen now--Even the children would be
a poor consolation.
But nothing would happen. He would go on being more and more delicious
and successful; she would go on being happy and proud, watching eagerly
the maturement of her ambitions for him. Even now she was intensely
proud of him--though, of course, it would never do to let him suspect
it.
It was an astounding thing, this literary triumph. Secretly, she
admitted, she had never had enormous faith in his poetical powers. She
had liked his work because it was his. And being the daughter of a
mildly literary man, she had developed a serious critical faculty
capable of generously appraising any artistic effort of real sincerity
and promise. But she had seldom thought of Stephen's poetry in terms of
the market, of public favour and material reward. Certainly she had not
married him as "a poet" or even "a writer." But that only made his
meteoric success more dazzling and delightful. Sometimes it was almost
impossible to realize, she found, that this young man she had married
was the same Stephen Byrne whose name was everywhere--on the bookstalls,
in the publishers' advertisements, in literary articles in any paper you
picked up; that all over the country men and women were buying and
reading and re-reading and quoting and discussing bits of poetry which
_her_ husband had scribbled down on odd bits of paper at her own house.
It was astounding. Margery was passing the small houses at the end of
the Square, the homes of clerks and shop-people and superior artisans.
She glanced at a group of wives, garrulously taking the air at a
doorway, and almost pitied them because _their_ husbands' names were
never before the public. It seemed awful, now, to be absolutely obscure.
No. She didn't think that really. After all, it was an "extra," this
fame. It had nothing to do with her marrying Stephen; it would have
nothing to do with her happiness with Stephen. It was a kind of
matrimonial windfall. What really mattered was Stephen himself, and
Margery herself, and the way in which they fitted together. What, she
really--yes, _adored_--there was no other word--was himself, his black
hair and his twinkling smile, his laugh and jolliness and funny little
ways. And his character. That, of course, was the foundation of it all.
A dear and excellent character. Other men, even the best of them, did
horrid things sometimes. Stephen, she knew, with all his faults--a
little selfish, perhaps--conceited? no, but self-centred, rather--would
never do anything mean or degrading or treacherous. She could trust him
absolutely. He would certainly never disgrace her as some men did
disgrace their wives--women, drink, and so on. "The soul of
honour"--that was the phrase.... That, again, was a marvellous piece of
fortune, that out of a world of peccant questionable men she should have
been allowed to appropriate a man like Stephen, so nearly perfect and
secure. No wonder she had this consuming, this frightening sense of
adoration, sometimes. But she tried to suppress that. It was dangerous.
"Thou shalt not bow down ..."
Margery smiled secretly and turned her latch-key in the lock.
In the hall she noticed immediately Stephen's hat on the peg, and was
glad that he was home. She walked through with her letters to the
garden, and looked out over the wall. The boat was gone, and she was
faintly disappointed. Far down the river she fancied she saw it, a dirty
whiteness, and resisted an impulse to call to Stephen. It must be nice
on the river tonight. The rabbits rustled stealthily in the corner; a
faint unpleasant smell hung about their home. She looked absently at the
rabbit Paul, his nose twitching endlessly in the moonlight, and went in
to bed.
When she had undressed she leaned for a long time out of the high window
looking at the night. Across the river lay the broad reservoirs of the
water company, and the first houses were half a mile away; so that from
the window on a night like this you looked over seemingly endless
stretches of gleaming water; strangers coming there at night-time
wondered at the wide spaciousness of this obscure corner of London. You
could imagine yourself easily in some Oriental city. Hammersmith and
Chiswick and Barnes wore a romantic coat of shadow and silver. The
carved reflections of the small trees on the other bank were so nearly
like reflected rows of palms. The far-off outline of factories against
the sky had the awe and mystery of mosques. In the remote murmur of
London traffic there was the note, at once lazy and sinister,
treacherous and reposeful, of an Eastern town. And now when no tugs
went by and nothing stirred, the silent river, rushing smoothly into the
black heart of London, had for Margery something of the sombre majesty
of the Nile, hinting at dark unnameable things, passion and death and
furtive cruelties, and all that sense of secrecy and crime which clings
to the river-side of great cities, the world over.
Margery wondered idly how much of all that talk about the Thames was
true; whether horrible things were still done secretly beside her
beloved river, hidden and condoned by the river, carried away to the
sea.... Down in the docks, no doubt.... Wapping and so on.
The prosaic thumping of a tug broke the spell of Margery's imagination.
She looked up and down for Stephen's boat, a faint crossness in her mind
because of his lateness. She got into bed. She was sleepy, but she would
read and doze a little till he came in.
She woke first drowsily to the hollow sound of oars clattering in a
boat, a murmur of low voices and subdued splashings ... Stephen mooring
the boat ... how late he was.
A long while afterwards, it seemed, she woke again: Stephen was creaking
cautiously up the stairs. She felt that he was peeping at her round the
door, murmured sleepily, "How late you are," dimly comprehended his soft
excuses ... something about the tide ... caught by the tide ... engine
went wrong ... of course ... always did ... raised her head with a vast
effort to be kissed ... a very delicate and reverent kiss ... remembered
to ask if Cook was back ... mustn't lock the front door ... half heard a
deep "Good night, my darling, go to sleep" ... and drifted luxuriously
to sleep again, to comfortable dreams of Stephen, dreams of babies ...
moonlight ... especial editions ... palm trees and water--peaceful,
silvery water.
Long afterwards there was a distant fretful interruption, hardly heeded.
A stir outside. Cook's voice ... Stephen's voice ... something about
Emily. Emily Gaunt ... not come home ... must speak seriously to Emily
tomorrow ... can't be bothered now. Stephen see to it ... Stephen and
Cook. Cook's voice, raucous. Cook's night out ... late ... go to bed,
Cook ... go to bed ... go to bed, everybody ... all's well.
* * * * *
Stephen turned out the light and crept away to the little room behind,
thanking God for the fortunate sleepiness of his wife. The dreaded
moment had passed.
He sat down wearily on the bed and tried to reduce the whirling tangle
in his brain to order. He ought, of course, to be thinking things out,
planning precautions, explanations, studied ignorances. But he was too
muddled, too tired. God, how tired! Lugging that hateful sack about. And
that awful row home--more than a mile against the tide, though John had
done most of that, good old John.... (There was something disturbing he
had said to John, when they parted at last--what the devil was it?...
Something had slipped out.... An intangible, uneasy memory prodded him
somewhere ... no matter.) And then when he did get back, what a time he
had had in the scullery, tidying the refuse on the floor, groping about
under a table ... hundreds of pieces of paper, grease-paper, newspaper,
paper bags, orange skins, old tins, bottles.... He had gathered them all
and put them in a bucket, a greasy bucket, with tea-leaves at the
bottom ... carried it down to the river on tiptoe ... four journeys.
God, what a night!
But it was over now--it was over--that part of it. All that was wanted
now was a straight face, a little acting, and some straightforward
lying. "God knows, I can lie all right," Stephen thought, "though nobody
knows it." What lie was it he had invented about the sack, tired as he
was? Oh yes, that John had borrowed it, and that John had first emptied
the rubbish into the river.... Yes, he had coached John on the steps
about that ... told him to keep it up if necessary. Old John had looked
funny when he said that. John didn't like lies, even necessary ones. A
bit of a prig, old John.
Stephen pulled at the bow of his black tie and fumbled at the stud. He
took off one sock and scratched his ankle reflectively. It was a pity
about John. He was such a good fellow, really, such a good friend. He
had helped him splendidly tonight, invaluable. But God knew what he felt
about it all.... Shocked, of course.... Flabbergasted (whatever that
meant). The question was, how would he get over the shock? How would he
feel when he woke up? Would he be permanently shocked, stop being
friends?... He was a friend worth keeping, old John. And his opinion was
worth having, his respect. Anyhow, it was going to be awkward. One would
always feel a bit mean and ashamed now with John--in the wrong,
somehow.... Stephen hated to feel in the wrong.
Cook lumbered breathlessly up the stairs, and halted with a loud sigh on
the landing. She knocked delicately on Mrs. Byrne's door and threw out a
tentative, "If you please, mum." Stephen went out. The acting must
begin.
"What is it, Mrs. Beach--speak low--Mrs. Byrne's asleep."
"It's Emily, sir, if you please, sir, turned half-past eleven now, sir,
and she's not in the house. I didn't speak before, sir, thinking she
might have slipped out like for a bit of a turn and met a friend like.
She weren't in the kitchen, sir, when I come in, nor in the bedroom
neither. I thought perhaps as how you'd seen her, sir, when you come in
and sent her on a herrand like. What had I best do sir shall I lock up
sir it's late for a young girl and gone out without her mack too."
Mrs. Beach concluded her remarks with a long, unpunctuated peroration as
if fearful that her scanty wind should fail altogether before she had
fully delivered herself.
Stephen thought rapidly. Had he sent Emily out on a "herrand," or had he
not seen her at all?
He said, "No, Mrs. Beach, I didn't see her; I went straight out on to
the river. No doubt she went out for a little walk and met a friend, as
you say. She'll be back soon, no doubt, and I'm afraid you'll have to
let her in ... very naughty of her to stay out so late. Nothing to be
done, I fear. Good night, Mrs. Beach."
Mrs. Beach caught sympathetically at Stephen's meaning suggestion of
Emily's naughtiness. "Good night, sir," she puffed; "she always was a
one for the young men, though I says it myself, but there youth will
'ave its fling, they say, and sorry I am to disturb you, sir, but I
thought as I'd best speak, it was that late, sir."
"Quite right, Mrs. Beach. Good night."
"Good night, sir."
Mrs. Beach sighed herself ponderously down the dark stairs. Stephen went
back into his room with a startling sense of elation. He had done that
well. It would be marvellously easy if it was all like that. That word
"naughty" had been a masterpiece; he was proud of it. Already he had set
moving a plausible explanation of Emily's disappearance--Emily's
frailty--Emily's "friend." Cook would do the rest. Mentally he chuckled.
Suddenly then he appreciated the vileness on which he was congratulating
himself, and the earlier blackness settled upon him. Something like
conscience, something like remorse, had room to stir in place of his
abated fears. It was going to be a wretched business, this "easy" lying
and hypocrisy and deceit--endless stretches of wickedness seemed to open
out before him. What a mess it was! How the devil had it happened--to
him, Stephen Byrne, the reputed, respectable young author?
Suddenly--like the lights fusing ... What, in Heaven's name, had made
him do it? Emily Gaunt, of all people.... Curse Emily! He wasted no pity
on her, no sentimental sorrow for the wiping out of a warm young life.
Emily had brought it on herself, the little fool. It was her
fault--really.... Stephen was too self-centred to be gravely disturbed
by thoughts of Emily, except so far as she was likely to affect his
future peace of mind. And he had seen too much of death in the war to be
much distressed by the fact of death. His inchoate remorse was more of a
protest than a genuine regret for wrong--a protest against the wounding
of self-respect, against the coming worries and anxieties and necessary
evasions, and all the foreseen unpleasantness which this damnable night
had forced upon him. It must not happen again, this kind of thing. Too
upsetting. Stephen began to make fierce resolutions, as sincere as any
resolutions can be that rest on such unsubstantial foundations. He was
going to be a better fellow in future--a better husband.... People
thought a lot of him at present--and they were deceived. In future he
would live up grandly to "people's" conception of him, to Margery's
conception of him.
When he thought of Margery he was suddenly and intensely ashamed. That
aspect of his conduct he had so far managed to ignore. Now he became
suddenly hot at the thought of it. He had behaved damnably to Margery.
Supposing she had come back earlier, discovered Emily. "A--a--ah!" A
strangled exclamation burst from him, as men groan in spite of
themselves at some story of brutality or pain. Sweat stood about his
temples. Poor Margery, so patient and loving and trustful. What a swine
he had been! The resolutions swelled enormously ... no more drinking ...
the drink had done it ... he would knock it off altogether. No, not
altogether--that was silly, unnecessary. In moderation. He slipped his
trousers to the floor.
Margery thought too much of him, believed in him too well. It was
terrible, in a way, being an idol; life would be easier if one had a bad
reputation, even an ordinary "man-of-the-world" reputation. A character
of moral perfection was a heavy burden, if you were not genuinely equal
to it. Never mind, in future, he _would_ be equal to it; he _would_ be
perfect. Tender and chivalrous thoughts of Margery invaded him; the
resolutions surged wildly up, an almost religious emotion glowed warmly
inside him; he felt somehow as he used to feel at Communion, walking
back to his seat. He used to pray in those days, properly.... He felt
like praying now.
He tied the string of his pyjamas and knelt down by the small bed. It
was a long time since he had prayed. During the war, in tight corners,
when he had been terribly afraid, he had prayed--the sick, emergency
supplications of all soldiers--the "O God, get me out of this and I will
be good" kind of prayer. The _padres_ used to preach sermons about such
prayers, and sometimes Stephen had determined to pray always at the safe
times as well as the dangerous, but this had never lasted for long. Now
his prayers were on the same note, wrung out of him like his resolutions
by the urgent emotions of the moment, sincere but bodiless.
He prayed, "O God, I have been a fool and a swine. O God, forgive me for
this night's work and get me out of the mess safely, and I will--I will
be good." That was the only way of expressing it--"being good," like a
child. "In future I will be a better man and pray more often. O God,
keep this from Margery, for her sake, not mine. O God, forgive me, and
make me better. Amen."
Stephen rose from his knees, a little relieved, but with an
uncomfortable sense of bargaining. It was difficult to pray without
driving a bargain, somehow ... like some of those wretched hymns:
"And when I see Thee as Thou art
I'll praise Thee as I ought,"
for instance, a close, inescapable contract. The old tune sang in his
head. But if one prayed properly, no doubt one learned to exclude that
commercial flavour.--How hot it was!
He turned out the light and crept slowly under the sheets. For a long
time he lay staring at the dark, thinking now of Emily's night-dress....
Probably it was marked--in neat red letters--Emily Gaunt. Probably the
sacking would wear away where the rope went through it, dragging with
the tide. Probably.... Hideous possibilities crowded back and gloom
returned to him. And what was it he had said to John? He had forgotten
about that. Something silly had slipped out, when John had looked so
shocked, something intended to soothe John's terrible conscience,
something about "doing the right thing afterwards"--after the baby had
safely come. "I'll put things right then," he remembered saying. What
the devil had he meant by that? What did John think he had meant? Hell!
Stephen threw off the blanket; he was sweating again.
When the cold chime of St. Peter's struck three he lay still maddeningly
awake in a feverish muddle of thought. Then at last he slept, dreaming
wildly.
Emily Gaunt shifted uneasily in her oozy bed, tugging at her anchor, as
the tide rolled down.
V
Every misfortune which can happen to a man who travels Underground in
London had happened to John Egerton. Worn and irritable with a sultry
day at the Ministry he had jostled with a shuffling multitude on to the
airless platform at Charing Cross. From near the bottom of the stairs he
saw that an Ealing train was already in; more important, the train was
stopping at Stamford Brook. Stamford Brook was a "non-stop station," so
that if you missed your train in the busy hours you might wait for an
intolerable time. On this sweltering evening it was urgent to escape as
quickly as possible from the maddening crowd of sticky citizens and
simpering girls. It was urgent to catch that train. Already they were
slamming home the doors. John made a nightmare attempt to hurry down the
last few steps and across to that train. His way was blocked by a mob of
deliberate backs, unaccountably indifferent to the departure of the
Ealing train, and moving with exasperating slowness. John, with mumbled
and insincere apologies, dived through the narrow alley between a portly
man and a portly woman. Whistles were blowing now, but once down the
stairs the way would be fairly clear to the desirable train. Only round
the foot of the stairs hovered a bewildered family, a shoal of small
children clinging to their expansive mother and meagre sire, wondering
stupidly what they ought to do next in this strange muddle of a place.
They were back from some country jaunt and bristled with mackintoshes
and small chairs and parcels and spades and other impassable
excrescences.
John governed himself and said, "Excuse me, please," with a difficult
assumption of calm. None of them moved. John longed to seize the little
idiots by the throat and fling them aside, to knock down the meagre man
and trample upon him. Instead, he shouted aggressively, "Let me pass,
please!"--the train was moving now. The large woman looked back, with a
frightened air, shot out an arm with a sharp "Mabel!" and plucked her
first-born daughter aside by the flesh of her arm pinched painfully
between finger and thumb. The child screeched, but the way was clear,
and John flung forward. An open door was moving almost opposite him; he
had only to swing himself in. Then from nowhere appeared a youthful
uniformed official, who barred the way with an infuriating aspect of
authority, and slammed fast the receding door. The train slid
clattering past and vanished with a parting flicker of blue flashes. The
boy walked off with an Olympian and incorruptible air, not looking at
John, as who should say, "Tamper not with me." Interfering ass! John had
an impulse to go after and abuse him, demonstrate with fierce argument
the folly of the youth. The waiting crowd observed him with the
heartless amusement of crowds, hoping secretly that he would lose his
temper, provide entertainment. John saw them and controlled himself,
thinking with a conscientious effort, "His duty, I suppose," and
contented himself with a long glower at the obstructive family.
The next train was a Wimbledon one; the next an Inner Circle; the next a
Richmond, not stopping at Stamford Brook. The endless people shuffled
always down the stairs, drifted aimlessly along the platform, jostled
and barged good-humouredly about the teeming trains. Government flappers
congregated giggling in small groups, furtively examined by ambulant
young men. In spite of the heat and the stuffy smell of humanity and the
exasperation of crowded travelling there was a pleasant atmosphere of
contentment and goodwill. Only here and there were the fretful and
distressed, mainly countryfolk, unaccustomed to the hardships of London.
Tonight the equable John was among these petulant ones, which was
unusual. He was worried and depressed--in no mood for a prolonged
entanglement with a hot crowd. Never had he waited so long. Number 1 on
the indicator now was a Putney train; Number 2 another Inner
Circle--what the devil did they want with so many Circle trains? And why
was Stamford Brook a non-stop station? Hundreds of people used it--far
more than Sloane Square, for example, or St. James' Park. He would write
a letter to the Company about these things. The terms of his letter
began to frame themselves in his mind--conceived in the best Civil
Service style: "It is evident ... convenience of greatest number of
passengers ... revised program ... facilities ... volume of traffic ..."
The Putney train racketed away; Number 2 was an Ealing now. John edged
up to the glaring bookstall and stood with a row of men staring idly at
the dusty covers of old sevenpennies--price two shillings. None of these
men bought anything, only stood silent and gazed, as if in wonder at
such a multitude of unbuyable books. On the cover of one of them--_Three
Years with the Hapsburgs: the Thrilling Chronicle of an English
Governess_--the gaudy picture of a young woman caught his eye. It
reminded him somehow of Emily Gaunt, and he turned away. He did not want
to be reminded of Emily.
The Ealing train came in, and John was swept in with a tight mass of
people through the middle doors of a smoking carriage. The atmosphere
was a suffocating mixture of hot breath and evil tobacco-smoke. The
carriage was packed. Men and women stood jammed together like troops in
a communication-trench. Here and there a clerk stood up with a sheepish
mumble and a sallow woman sank thankfully into his seat. John stared
with increasing resentment at the rows of men who did not get up--tired
labourers in corduroy trousers who sat on in unmoved contentment, or
gross men with cigars who screened themselves behind evening papers,
pretending they did not notice the standing women.
The train stopped, and there was a fierce squeezing and struggling at
the doors. A man behind John remembered suddenly that he wanted to get
out, and began with much heaving and imprecation to hew a passage,
treading violently on John's ankle. But by now there were more people
surging inwards, clinging precariously to the fringe of the mob. The
train rushed on, and the man was left within it, cursing feebly. John
felt glad, maliciously, ridiculously glad. But when he looked again at
the sedentary gross men, the placid labourers, and at the short, pale
women swaying in the centre he became righteously furious with the evil
manners of the men. He felt that he would like to address them, curse
them about it--that fat one with the insolent leer and the cap all
cock-eye, especially; he would say loudly at the next station, "Why
don't you give one of these ladies your seat?" Then the man would _have_
to get up, would stand shamed before the world, while some grateful
female--that nurse there--took his seat. Perhaps all the others would
follow.
Or perhaps it would happen quite differently. The man would not hear, or
pretend not to hear; and he, John, would have to repeat his remark,
losing greatly in dramatic force. And every one would stare at him, as
if he were a madman! Or the man would surrender his seat with a sweet
smile and an apology, "Very sorry, I didn't see"; and then the fools of
women would refuse to take the seat. They would all say they were
getting out at the next station; they would all simper and deprecate and
behave like lunatics. The man would hover with a self-righteous,
ingratiating smirk and sit down again. And John Egerton would look a
fool. No--it couldn't be done. What cowards men were!
A very hot and spotty man breathed disgustingly in John's face; unable
to move his body, he turned his head away to the left. On that side
stood a robust young woman, with hatpins menacingly projecting from a
red straw hat. Her head rocked as the train jolted: the cherries on her
hat bobbed ridiculously, the naked hatpin-points swung backwards and
forwards in front of John's eye. He turned back to the disgusting breath
of the spotty man.
At Earl's Court the crowd melted a little; there were no seats, but
there was room to breathe--room to stand by oneself, free from pressure
of strange bodies. At Baron's Court he crept into a seat. At Hammersmith
a noisy mob of shop-girls and hobble-dehoys surged in, and he
surrendered his seat to a young woman, who was munching something. She
sat down with a giggle and took her sister on her lap. Together they
eyed him, with whispered jocularities. Only two more stations.
The lights were out now. The train ran out through the daylight on to a
high embankment, past an interminable series of dingy houses. There was
more air. The filthy smoke eddied out of the narrow windows. The train
rocked enormously--a bad piece of line. Looking down the car from his
place by the door, John saw through the haze an interminable vista of
uniform right hands fiercely clinging to uniform straps, of right arms
uniformly crooked, of bowed heads uniformly bent over evening papers, of
endless backs uniformly enduring and dull. And as the train gave a
lurch, all the elbows swung out together towards the windows, and all
the bodies bent outward like willows in the wind, and all the heads were
lifted together in a mute and uniform protest. It was all like some
fantastic physical drill. Then he fell into the weary stupor of the
habitual Underground traveller, listening semiconsciously to the insane
chatter of the chuckling girls. Ravenscourt Park shot by unnoticed. The
train ran on for ever.
Stooping suddenly, he saw the familiar letters of Stamford Brook dashing
past at an astonishing speed. Surely--surely the train was stopping. The
porters' room--the ticket collector--the passenger-shelter--the Safety
First pictures--the advertisement of What Ho!--the other name-board of
the station--the whole station--shot maddeningly past. The train rushed
on to the intolerable remoteness of Turnham Green. Hell! John Egerton
uttered an audible groan of vexation. _Two_ non-stop trains running! It
was unpardonable. He had not even thought to look at the non-stop labels
on the train at Charing Cross. It was too bad. Another matter for the
letter to the Company! The women looked at his scowling face and giggled
again, whispering behind their hands.
From Turnham Green you might walk home; but it took nearly twenty
minutes. Or if you were lucky you caught a train quickly back to
Stamford Brook. As they came into the station, John saw an up-train
gliding off on the other side of the same platform. Of course! just
missed it! And no doubt the next one would decline to stop at Stamford
Brook! Once you began having bad luck on the Underground you might as
well give up all hope of improving it that day. You might as well walk.
He _would_ walk. But how damnable it all was!
He waited with the thick crowd at the ticket gate, fumbling for his
ticket in his waistcoat pocket. That was where he had put it--he always
did. Always in the same place--as a methodical man should do. But it was
not there. It was not in the other waistcoat pocket--nor in his
right-hand trouser pocket. "Now, then," said an aggressive voice behind,
and he stepped aside. Lost his place in the queue, now! He put down his
dispatch-case and felt furiously in his pockets with both hands. The
passengers dwindled down the stairs; he was left alone, regarded
indifferently by the bored official. This was a fitting climax to an
abominable journey.
He found it at last, lurking in the flap of a tobacco-pouch, and because
he had come too far he was forced to pay another penny. There was a
preposterous argument. "Putting a premium on inconvenience!"
He walked home at last, cursing foolishly, and adding new periods to
his letter to the Company. All over London men and women walked back to
their homes that evening through the hot streets, bitter and irritated
and physically distressed, ruminating on the problem of over-population
and the difficulties of movement in the hub of the world--only a small
proportion, it is true, as bitter and irritated as John, but every night
the same proportion, every night a thousand or two. Historians, it is to
be hoped, and scientists and statisticians, when they write up their
estimates of that year, will not fail to record the mental and physical
fatigue, the waste of tissue and nervous energy, imposed upon the
citizens of our great Metropolis by the simple necessity of proceeding
daily from their places of work to their places of residence. Small
things, these irritations, an odd penny here, an odd ten minutes there,
the difference between just catching and just missing a train, the
difference between just standing for twenty minutes, and just sitting
down--but they mounted up! They mounted up into vast excrescences of
discourtesy and crossness; they made calm and equable and polite persons
suddenly and amazingly abrupt and unkind.
John Egerton was seldom so seriously ruffled; but then it was seldom
that so peculiarly unfortunate a journey concluded so peculiarly painful
a day. A sticky and intolerable day. A "rushed" and ineffectual day.
"Things" had shown a deliberate perversity at the office, papers had
surprisingly lost themselves and thereafter surprisingly discovered
themselves at the most awkward moments; telephone girls had been pert,
telephone numbers permanently engaged. The Board of Trade had behaved
execrably. John's own Minister had been unusually curt--jumpy.
And hovering at the back of it all, a kind of master-irritation, which
governed and stimulated every other one, was the unpleasant memory of
Emily Gaunt.
So that he walked down the Square in a dark and melancholy temper. And
Emily Gaunt met him on the doorstep. The skinny successor of Emily Gaunt
in the household of the Byrnes stood at the doorway of his house,
talking timidly to Mrs. Bantam. She had come for "some sack or other,"
Mrs. Bantam explained. "And there's no sack in this house--that I _will_
swear." She spoke with the violent emphasis of all Mrs. Bantams, as if
the presence of a sack in a gentleman's house would have been an almost
unspeakable offence against chastity and good taste. The skinny maid
turned from her with relief to the less formidable presence of John.
"If you please, sir, Cook says as the missus says as Mrs. Byrne says
as--as"--the skinny maid faltered in this interminable forest of
"as's"--"as you 'as the big sack that was in the scullery, sir, and if
you've done with it, sir, could we 'ave it back, sir, as the man's come
for the bottles?"
The sack! Emily's sack! John had no need of the young woman's
exposition. He remembered vividly. He remembered now what Stephen had
said about it--in the boat--under the wall. John had "borrowed" it. He
remembered now. But what the devil had he borrowed it for? And why--why
should he have to stand on his own doorstep this terrible day and invent
lies for a couple of women?
And what had the man coming for the bottles to do with it, he wondered?
But a lie must be invented--and quickly. He said, "Will you tell Mrs.
Byrne, I'm very sorry--I took the sack out in my boat--to--to collect
firewood--and--and--lost it--overboard, you know? Tell her I'm very
sorry, will you, and I'll get her another sack?" He tried to smile
nicely at the young woman; a painful smirk revealed itself.
"Thank you, sir."
The young woman melted away, and he walked indoors, feeling sullied and
ashamed. He hated telling lies. He was one of those uncommon members of
the modern world who genuinely object to the small insincerities of
daily life, lying excuses over the telephone for not going out to
dinner, manufactured "engagements," and so on. And the fact that this
lie was part of a grand conspiracy to protect a man from an indictment
for murder did not commend it. On the contrary, it enhanced that feeling
of "identification" with the end of Emily which he had been trying for
two weeks to shake off. Oh, it was damnable!
For his solitary dinner he opened a bottle of white wine--a rare
indulgence. He hoped earnestly that Mrs. Bantam would be less
communicative than usual. Mrs. Bantam had cooked and kept house for him
for six months. She was one of that invaluable body of semi-decayed but
capable middle-aged females who move through the world scorning and
avoiding the company of their own sex, and seeking for single gentlemen
with households; single gentlemen without female encumbrances; single
gentlemen over whom they may exercise an undisputed dominion; single
gentlemen who want "looking after," who are incapable of ordering their
own food or "seeing to" their own clothes, who would, it is to be
supposed, fade helplessly out of existence but for the constant comfort
and support of their superior cook-housekeepers.
Mrs. Bantam was intensely superior. From what far heights of luxury and
distinction she had descended to the obscure kitchen of Island Lodge
could be dimly apprehended from her dignity and her vocabulary and an
occasional allusive passage in her conversation. She was as the
transmigrant soul of some domestic pig, faintly aware of a nobler status
in some previous existence. Where or what that existence had been John
had never discovered; only he knew that it was noble, and that it had
ended abruptly many years ago with the inconsiderate decease of "my
hubby."
Mrs. Bantam, for all her dignity, was scraggy, and had the aspect of
chronic indigestion and decay. She was draped for ever in funereal
black, partly in memory of hubby, partly, no doubt, because black was
"superior." She walked, or rather proceeded, with an elegant stoop, her
head stuck forward like an investigating hen, her long arms hanging
straight down in front of her from her stooping shoulders like
plumb-lines, suspended from a leaning tower. Her face was pinched and
marvellously pale, and her black eyes retreated into unfathomable
recesses. Her chin receded and ended suddenly in a kind of fold, from
which a flabby isthmus of skin went straight to the base of her throat,
like the neck of a fowl; in this precarious envelope an Adam's apple of
operatic dimensions moved up and down with alarming velocity.
Like so many of the world's greatest personalities, she had a noble
soul, but she would make speeches. Her intercourse with others was one
long oration. And she was too urbane. When she laid the bacon before her
gentleman of the moment as he gazed moodily at his morning paper, she
would ask pardon in a shrill chirp, like the notes of a superannuated
yodeller, for "passing in front" of him. This used to drive John as near
to distraction as a Civil Servant can safely go. And though she had
watched over him for six months, she still reminded him at every meal
that she was as yet, of course, ill-acquainted with his tastes, and
therefore unable to cater for those peculiar whims and fancies in which
he differed from the last gentleman. By keeping sedulously alive this
glorious myth she was able to disdain all responsibility for her choice
and treatment of his food.
She served supper now with an injured air, and John knew that she must
be allowed to talk during the whole meal instead of only during the
fish. She always talked during the fish. It was her ration. For she was
lonely, poor thing, brooding all day in her basement. But when she was
offended, or hurt, or merely annoyed, it was John's policy to allow her
to exceed her ration.
So now she stood in the dark corner by the door, clutching an elbow
feverishly in each hand, as if she feared that at any moment her
fore-arms might fly away and be no more seen, and began:
"_Sack_, indeed! What next, I wonder? And I'm shore I hope you'll like
the fillet of plaice, Mr. Egerton, though reely I don't know _what_ your
tastes are. We all have our likes and dislikes as they say, and it takes
time learning gentlemen's little ways. But as for seeing a sack in
_this_ house--well, I'm shore I don't know when you had it, Mr. Egerton.
A pore young thing that maid they have, so mean and scraggy-looking--a
proper misery, _I_ call her. And Mrs. Byrne in that condition, too; one
would think they wanted a good _strong_ gairl to help about the house.
The doctor was sent for this afternoon, Mr. Egerton, and I don't wonder
it came so soon, what with the worry about that other hussy going off
like that--would you like the Worcester, Mr. Egerton? You must _tell_
me, you know, if there _is_ anything. I know the last gentleman would
have mushroom catchup, or ketchop as they call it--nothing would satisfy
him but mushroom catchup, and for those as like their insides messed up
with toadstools and dandelions I'm shore it's very tasty, but, as I was
saying, that Emily was a bad one and there's no mistake, gadding off
like that with a young man and not her night out, and then the sauce of
her people coming round and bothering Mrs. Byrne about her--the idea.
Cook tells me Mr. Byrne told them straight out about her goings on with
young men all the time she's been here, in and out, in and out night
after night--and--"
John woke up with a start.
"What's that you say, Mrs. Bantam? Mr. Byrne--Mr. Byrne did _what_?"
"I was just saying, sir, how Mr. Byrne told Emily's people what he
thought of her when they come worrying round the other day, so Cook was
telling me. A proper hussy she must have been and no mistake--not Cook I
mean, but that young Emily, gadding out night after night, young men and
followers and the good Lord knows what all. Are you ready for your
cutlet now, sir, and all that plaice left in the dish? Well, I never
did, if you aren't a poor eater, Mr. Egerton--and there's no doubt she
was out with one of them one night and went further than she meant, no
doubt, but if you make your bed you must lie on it, though I've no doubt
she's sorry now...."
Mrs. Bantam passed out into the kitchen, her voice trailing distantly
away like the voices of the Pilgrims in _Tannhauser_.
John sat silent, pondering darkly her disclosures. It was a fortnight
now since the fatal evening of Emily Gaunt's destruction and disposal.
During that fortnight he had not once seen Stephen Byrne in private.
They had met at the Underground Station; they had pressed against each
other in the rattling train, shouting odd scraps of conversation with
other members of The Chase; and John had marvelled at the easy
cheerfulness of his friend. But since that night he had never "dropped
in" or "looked in" at The House by the River in the evenings. He had
never been asked to come, and he was glad. He was afraid of seeing
Stephen alone, and he supposed that Stephen was afraid.
He had wondered sometimes what was going on in that house, had felt
sometimes that he ought to go round and be helpful. But he could not.
Like all The Chase, he had heard through his domestic staff of the
sudden and inexcusable disappearance of Emily Gaunt. The soundless,
uncanny systems of communication, which the more skilled Indian tribes
are reputed to employ, could not have disseminated with greater
thoroughness or rapidity than Mrs. Byrne's cook the precise details of
the Emily mystery; how they had carried on angrily without her for three
or four days, railing at her defection and lack of faith; how Mr. Byrne
had at last suggested that she might have met with an accident; how the
police had been informed; how they had prowled about the garden and
looked aimlessly under beds; how they had shaken their pompous heads
again and gone away, and all the rest of it. There had been no
explanation and few theories, so far, to account for the vanishing of
Emily. Now Mrs. Bantam had given him one, invented, apparently, and
propagated by Stephen. And it shook him like a blow. That poor
girl--as good as gold, so far as he knew--should be slandered and
vilified in death by the one man who should have taken care at least to
keep her name clean. A fierce note of scorn and disgust broke
involuntarily from him.
"Coming, sir," cried Mrs. Bantam, hurrying in with the almost
imperceptible bustle of a swan pressed for time. "And it's sorry I am
it's only a couple of cutlets I'm giving you, brown and nice as they
are, but could I get steak at the butcher's today? Not if I was the King
of Spain, sir, no, and the loin-chop that scraggy it was a regular piece
of profiteering to have it in the shop, that it was, let alone sell it.
Well, sir, as my poor hubby used to say, that young woman's no better
than she should be, and she's come to a bad end...."
"Never mind her now, Mrs. Bantam. We don't _know_ anything--"
"_Know_ anything! I should think not, sir, for they're all as deceiving
and artful as each other, of course, and when a nice kind gentleman like
Mr. Byrne--but if one can't know one can guess--a nod's as good as a
wink, they say, and I'm shore--"
The address continued interminably. John made himself as the deaf adder
and scraped his cutlet clean in a mute fever of irritation. He felt as a
man feels in a busy office, working against time at some urgent task in
the face of constant interruptions. He could not fix his mind on the
Emily matter, on Stephen, on the Underground Railway, or his food. There
was a kind of thickness about his temples which he had noticed already
at Turnham Green station, and he felt that he was not digesting. Mrs.
Bantam hammered ruthlessly on his tired head; and the ticket collector
and the Board of Trade, and Emily and Stephen Byrne and the young porter
at Victoria rushed indignantly about inside it. Sometimes he waved a
fork distractedly at Mrs. Bantam and asked her to fetch a new kind of
sauce, to secure a moment's respite. Soon all the sauce bottles he
possessed were ranged before him, a pitiful monument of failure. And
when Mrs. Bantam swept out to organize the sweet, he shouted that he had
finished, and stole out into the garden, defeated.
It was a damp and misty evening, with the hint of rain. The tide was as
it had been a fortnight before on the Emily evening, rolling exuberantly
in. Far out in the centre a dead yellow cat drifted westward at an
astonishing speed, high out of the water. He knew the cat well. For
weeks it had passed up and down the river. As far up as Richmond he had
seen it, and as far down as London Bridge. Some days, perhaps, it caught
under a moored barge, or was fixed for a little in the piers of a
bridge, or ran ashore in the reeds above Putney, or lay at low tide
under Hammerton Terrace. But most days it floated protesting through the
Metropolis and back again. John wondered idly for how long it would
drift like that, and in what last adventure it would finally
disappear--cut in twain by a bustling tug, or stoned to the bottom by
boys, or dragged down to the muddy depths by saturation. He thought of
it straining now towards the sea, now to the open country, yet ever
plucked back by the turning, relentless tide, just as it saw green
fields or smelt the smell of the sea, to travel yet once more through
the dark and cruel city. Once it was a kitten, fondled by children and
very round and lovable and fat. And then the world had become
indifferent, and then menacing, and then definitely hostile. Finally, no
doubt, it had died a death of violence. John thought then of Emily, and
sighed heavily. But he was feeling better now. Silence and the river had
soothed him; and--given quiet and solitude--he had the Civil Servant's
capacity for switching his mind from urgent worries to sedative
thoughts. The cat, somehow, had been a sedative, in spite of its violent
end. He went indoors out of the dark garden, studiously not looking at
Stephen's windows.
While he was on the stairs the telephone-bell rang in his study. He took
off the receiver and listened moodily to a profound silence, varied only
by the sound of some one furtively picking a lock with the aid of a
dynamo. Angrily he banged on the receiver and arranged himself in an
arm-chair with a heavy book.
When he had done this the bell rang again. A petulant voice--no doubt
justifiably petulant--said suddenly, "Are you the Midland Railway?"
John said, "No," and rang off; then he thought of all the bitter and
ironic things he ought to have said and regretted his haste.
He sat down and lit his pipe. The accursed bell rang again, insistently,
with infinitesimal pauses between the rings. He got up violently, with a
loud curse. The blood surged again in his head; the ticket collector and
the maddening train and Mrs. Bantam crowded back and concentrated
themselves into the hateful exasperating shape of the telephone. He took
off the receiver and shouted, "_Hullo! hullo!_ What is it? What is it?
Stop that ringing!" There was no answer; the bell continued to ring. He
had banged his pipe against the instrument, and the first ash was
scattered over the papers on the table. He took it out of his mouth, and
furiously waggled the receiver bracket up and down. He had heard that
this caused annoyance, if not actual pain, to the telephone operator,
and he hoped fervently that this was true. He wanted to hurt somebody.
He would have liked to pick up the instrument and hurl it in the
composite face of the evening's persecutors. His pipe rolled off on to
the floor.