by Frank Norris
“ — I think you can get that already sized, though, and with a stencil figure if you want it—”
“ — Really, it’s very interesting; the first part is stupid, but she has some very good ideas.”
“ — Yes, at Vanoni’s. But we get a reduction, you know—”
“ — and, oh, listen; this is too funny; she turned around and said, very prim and stiff, ‘No, indeed; I’m too old a woman.’ Funny! If I think of that on my deathbed I shall laugh—”
“ — and so that settled it. How could I go on after that — ?”
“ — Must you tack it on? The walls are so hard—”
“Let Rownie do it; she knows. Oh, here’s the invalid!”
“Oh, why, it’s Lloyd! We’re so glad you’re able to come down!”
But when they had done exclaiming over her reappearance among them Lloyd still remained as she was, her back against the door, standing very straight, her hands at her side. She did not immediately reply. Heads were turned in her direction. The talk fell away by rapid degrees as they began to notice the paleness of her face and the strange, firm set of her mouth.
“Sit down, Lloyd,” said Miss Bergyn; “don’t stand. You are not very well yet; I’ll have Rownie bring you a glass of sherry.”
There was a silence. Then at length:
“No,” said Lloyd quietly. “I don’t want any sherry. I don’t want any supper. I came down to tell you that you are all wrong in thinking I did what I could with my typhoid case at Medford. You think I left only after the patient had died. I did not; I left before. There was a crisis of some kind. I don’t know what it was, because I was not in the sick-room at the time, and I did not go when I was called. The doctor was not there either; he had gone out and left the case in my charge. There was nobody with the patient but a servant. The servant called me, but I did not go. Instead I came away and left the house. The patient died that same day. It is that that I wanted to tell you. Do you all understand — perfectly? I left my patient at the moment of a crisis, and with no one with him but a servant. And he died that same afternoon.”
Then she went out, and the closing of the door jarred sharply upon the great silence that had spread throughout the room.
Lloyd went back to her room, closed and locked the door, and, sinking down upon the floor by the couch, bowed her head upon her folded arms. But she was in no mood for weeping, and her eyes were dry. She was conscious chiefly that she had taken an irrevocable step, that her head had begun to ache. There was no exhilaration in her mind now; she did not feel any of the satisfaction of attainment after struggle, of triumph after victory. More than once she even questioned herself if, after all, her confession had been necessary. But now she was weary unto death of the whole wretched business. Now she only knew that her head was aching fiercely; she did not care either to look into the past or forward into the future. The present occupied her; for the present her head was aching.
But before Lloyd went to bed that night Miss Bergyn knew the whole truth as to what had happened at Dr. Pitts’s house. The superintendent nurse had followed Lloyd to her room almost immediately, and would not be denied. She knew very well that Lloyd Searight had never left a dying patient of her own volition. Intuitively she guessed at something hidden.
“Lloyd,” she said decisively, “don’t ask me to believe that you went of your own free will. Tell me just what happened. Why did you go? Ask me to believe anything but that you — no, I won’t say the word. There was some very good reason, wasn’t there?”
“I — I cannot explain,” Lloyd answered. “You must think what you choose. You wouldn’t understand.”
But, happily, when Lloyd’s reticence finally broke Miss Bergyn did understand. The superintendent nurse knew Bennett only by report. But Lloyd she had known for years, and realised that if she had yielded, it had only been after the last hope had been tried. In the end Lloyd told her everything that had occurred. But, though she even admitted Bennett’s affection for her, she said nothing about herself, and Miss Bergyn did not ask.
“I know, of course,” said the superintendent nurse at length, “you hate to think that you were made to go; but men are stronger than women, Lloyd, and such a man as that must be stronger than most men. You were not to blame because you left the case, and you are certainly not to blame for Mr. Ferriss’s death. Now I shall give it out here in the house that you had a very good reason for leaving your case, and that while we can’t explain it any more particularly, I have had a talk with you and know all about it, and am perfectly satisfied. Then I shall go out to Medford and see Dr. Pitts. It would be best,” she added, for Lloyd had made a gesture of feeble dissent. “He must understand perfectly, and we need not be afraid of any talk about the matter at all. What has happened has happened ‘in the profession,’ and I don’t believe it will go any further.”
Lloyd returned to Bannister toward the end of the week. How long she would remain she did not know, but for the present the association of the other nurses was more than she was able to bear. Later, when the affair had become something of an old story, she would return, resuming her work as though nothing had happened.
Hattie met her at the railway station with the phaeton and the ponies. She was radiant with delight at the prospect of having Lloyd all to herself for an indefinite period of time.
“And you didn’t get sick, after all?” she exclaimed, clasping her hands. “Was your patient as sick as I was? Weren’t his parents glad that you made him well again?”
Lloyd put her hand over the little girl’s mouth.
“Let us not talk any ‘shop,’ Hattie,” she said, trying to smile.
But on the morning after her arrival Lloyd woke in her own white room of the old farmhouse, abruptly conscious of some subtle change that had occurred to her overnight. For the first time since the scene in the breakfast-room at Medford she was aware of a certain calmness that had come to her. Perhaps she had at last begun to feel the good effects of the trial by fire which she had voluntarily undergone — to know a certain happiness that now there was no longer any deceit in her heart. This she had uprooted and driven out by force of her own will. It was gone. But now, on this morning, she seemed to feel that this was not all.
Something else had left her — something that of late had harassed her and goaded her and embittered her life, and mocked at her gentleness and kindness, was gone. That fierce, truculent hatred that she had so striven to put from her, now behold! of its own accord, it had seemed to leave her. How had it happened? Before she had dared the ordeal of confession this feeling of hatred, this perverse and ugly changeling that had brooded in her heart, had seemed too strong, too deeply seated to be moved. Now, suddenly, it had departed, unbidden, without effort on her part.
Vaguely Lloyd wondered at this thing. In driving deceit from her it would appear that she had also driven out hatred, that the one could not stay so soon as the other had departed. Could the one exist apart from the other? Was there, then, some strange affinity in all evil, as, perhaps, in all good, so that a victory over one bad impulse meant a victory over many? Without thought of gain or of reward, she had held to what was right through the confusion and storm and darkness. Was this to be, after all, her reward, her gain? Possibly; but she could not tell, she could not see. The confusion was subsiding, the storm had passed, but much of the darkness yet remained. Deceit she had fought from out her heart; silently Hatred had stolen after it. Love had not returned to his old place, and never, never would, but the changeling was gone, and the house was swept and garnished.
VIII.
The day after the funeral, Bennett returned alone to Dr. Pitts’s house at Medford, and the same evening his trunks and baggage, containing his papers — the records, observations, journals, and log-books of the expedition — followed him.
As Bennett entered the gate of the place that he had chosen to be his home for the next year, he was aware that the windows of one of the front rooms upon the second floor were wide
open, the curtains tied up into loose knots; inside a servant came and went, putting the room to rights again, airing it and changing the furniture. In the road before the house he had seen the marks of the wheels of the undertaker’s wagon where it had been backed up to the horse-block. As he closed the front door behind him and stood for a moment in the hallway, his valise in his hand, he saw, hanging upon one of the pegs of the hat-rack, the hat Ferriss had last worn. Bennett put down his valise quickly, and, steadying himself against the wall, leaned heavily against it, drawing a deep breath, his eyes closing.
The house was empty and, but for the occasional subdued noises that came from the front room at the end of the hall, silent. Bennett picked up his valise again and went upstairs to the rooms that had been set apart for him. He did not hang his hat upon the hat-rack, but carried it with him.
The housekeeper, who met him at the head of the stairs and showed him the way to his apartments, inquired of him as to the hours he wished to have his meals served. Bennett told her, and then added:
“I will have all my meals in the breakfast-room, the one you call the glass-room, I believe. And as soon as the front room is ready I shall sleep there. That will be my room after this.”
The housekeeper stared. “It won’t be quite safe, sir, for some time. The doctor gave very strict orders about ventilating it and changing the furniture.”
Bennett merely nodded as if to say he understood, and the housekeeper soon after left him to himself. The afternoon passed, then the evening. Such supper as Bennett could eat was served according to his orders in the breakfast-room. Afterward he called Kamiska, and went for a long walk over the country roads in a direction away from the town, proceeding slowly, his hands clasped behind his back. Later, toward ten o’clock, he returned. He went upstairs toward his room with the half-formed idea of looking over and arranging his papers before going to bed. Sleep he could not; he foresaw that clearly.
But Bennett was not yet familiar with the arrangement of the house. His mind was busy with other things; he was thoughtful, abstracted, and upon reaching the stair landing on the second floor, turned toward the front of the house when he should have turned toward the rear. He entered what he supposed to be his room, lit the gas, then stared about him in some perplexity.
The room he was in was almost bare of furniture. Even part of the carpet had been taken up. The windows were wide open; a stale odour of drugs pervaded the air, while upon the bed nothing remained but the mattress and bolster. For a moment Bennett looked about him bewildered, then he started sharply. This was — had been — the sick-room. Here, upon that bed, Ferriss had died; here had been enacted one scene in the terrible drama wherein he, Bennett, had played so conspicuous a part.
As Bennett stood there looking about him, one hand upon the foot-board of the bed, a strange, formless oppression of the spirit weighed heavily upon him. He seemed to see upon that naked bed the wasted, fever-stricken body of the dearest friend he had ever known. It was as though Ferriss were lying in state there, with black draperies hung about the bier and candles burning at the head and foot. Death had been in that room. Empty though it was, a certain religious solemnity, almost a certain awe, seemed to bear down upon the senses. Before he knew it Bennett found himself kneeling at the denuded bed, his face buried, his arms flung wide across the place where Ferriss had last reposed.
He could not say how long he remained thus — perhaps ten minutes, perhaps an hour. He seemed to come to himself once more when he stepped out into the hall again, closing and locking the door of the death-room behind him. But now all thought of work had left him. In the morning he would arrange his papers. It was out of the question to think of sleep. He descended once more to the lower floor of the silent house, and stepped out again into the open air.
On the veranda, close beside him, was a deep-seated wicker arm-chair. Bennett sank down into it, drawing his hands wearily across his forehead. The stillness of a summer night had settled broadly over the vast, dim landscape. There was no moon; all the stars were out. Very far off a whippoorwill was calling incessantly. Once or twice from the little orchard close at hand an apple dropped with a faint rustle of leaves and a muffled, velvety impact upon the turf. Kamiska, wide awake, sat motionless upon her haunches on the steps, looking off into the night, cocking an ear to every faintest sound.
Well, Ferriss was dead, and he, Bennett, was responsible. His friend, the man whom most he loved, was dead. The splendid fight he had made for his life during that ferocious struggle with the Ice had been all of no effect. Without a murmur, without one complaint he had borne starvation, the bitter arctic cold, privation beyond words, the torture of the frost that had gnawed away his hands, the blinding fury of the snow and wind, the unceasing and incredible toil with sledge and pack — all the terrible hardship of an unsuccessful attempt to reach the Pole, only to die miserably in his bed, alone, abandoned by the man and woman whom, of all people of the world, he had most loved and trusted. And he, Bennett, had been to blame.
Was Ferriss conscious during that last moment? Did he know; would he, sometime, somewhere, know? It could not be said. Forever that must remain a mystery. And, after all, had Bennett done right in keeping Lloyd from the sick-room? Now that all was over, now that the whole fearful tragedy could be judged somewhat calmly and in the light of reason, the little stealthy doubt began to insinuate itself.
At first he had turned from it, raging and furious, stamping upon it as upon an intruding reptile. The rough-hewn, simple-natured man, with his arrogant and vast self-confidence, his blind, unshaken belief in the wisdom of his own decisions, had never in his life before been willing to admit that he could be mistaken, that it was possible for him to resolve upon a false line of action. He had always been right. But now a change had come. A woman had entangled herself in the workings of his world, the world that hitherto had been only a world of men for him — and now he faltered, now he questioned himself, now he scrutinised his motives, now the simple became complicated, the straight crooked, right mingled with wrong, bitter with sweet, falseness with truth.
He who had faith in himself to remove mountains, he who could drive his fellow-men as a herder drives his sheep, he who had forced the vast grip of the Ice, had, with a battering ram’s force, crushed his way through those terrible walls, shattered and breached and broken down the barriers, now in this situation involving a woman — had he failed? Had he weakened? And bigger, stronger, and more persistently doubt intruded itself into his mind.
Hitherto Bennett’s only salvation from absolute despair had been the firm consciousness of his own rectitude. In that lay his only comfort, his only hope, his one, strong-built fabric of defence. If that was undermined, if that was eaten away, what was there left for him? Carefully, painfully, and with such minuteness as he could command, he went over the whole affair from beginning to end, forcing his unwilling mind — so unaccustomed to such work — to weigh each chance, to gauge each opportunity. If this were so, if that had been done, then would such results have followed? Suppose he had not interfered, suppose he had stood aside, would Lloyd have run such danger, after all, and would Ferriss at this time have been alive, and perhaps recovering? Had he, Bennett, been absolutely mad; had he been blind and deaf to reason; had he acted the part of a brute — a purblind, stupid, and unutterably selfish brute — thinking chiefly of himself, after all, crushing the woman who was so dear to him, sacrificing the life of the man he loved, blundering in there, besotted and ignorant, acting the bully’s part, unnecessarily frightened, cowardly where he imagined himself brave; weak, contemptibly weak, where he imagined himself strong? Might it not have been avoided if he had been even merely reasonable, as, in like case, an ordinary man would have been? He, who prided himself upon the promptness and soundness of his judgment in great crises, had lost his head and all power of self-control in this greatest crisis of all.
The doubt came back to him again and again. Trample it, stifle it, dash it from him as he would, ea
ch time it returned a little stronger, a little larger, a little more insistent. Perhaps, after all, he had made a mistake; perhaps, after all, Lloyd ran no great danger; perhaps, after all, Ferriss might now have been alive. All at once Bennett seemed to be sure of this.
Then it became terrible. Alone there, in the darkness and in the night, Bennett went down into the pit. Abruptly he seemed to come to himself — to realise what he had done, as if rousing from a nightmare. Remorse, horror, self-reproach, the anguish of bereavement, the infinite regret of things that never were to be again, the bitterness of a vanished love, self-contempt too abject for expression, the heart-breaking grief of the dreadful might-have-been, one by one, he knew them all. One by one, like the slow accumulation of gigantic burdens, the consequences of his folly descended upon him, heavier, more intolerably, more inexorably fixed with every succeeding moment, while the light of truth and reason searched every corner of his mind, and his doubt grew and hardened into certainty.
If only Bennett could have believed that, in spite of what had happened, Lloyd yet loved him, he could have found some ray of light in the darkness wherein he groped, some saving strength to bear the weight of his remorse and sorrow. But now, just in proportion as he saw clearer and truer he saw that he must look for no help in that direction. Being what Lloyd was, it was impossible for her, even though she wished it, to love him now — love the man who had broken her! The thought was preposterous. He remembered clearly that she had warned him of just this. No, that, too, the one sweetness of his rugged life, he must put from him as well — had already, and of his own accord, put from him.
How go on? Of what use now was ambition, endeavour, and the striving to attain great ends? The thread of his life was snapped; his friend was dead, and the love of the one woman of his world. For both he was to blame. Of what avail was it now to continue his work?
Ferriss was dead. Who now would stand at his side when the darkness thickened on ahead and obstacles drew across the path and Death overhead hung poised and menacing?