by Unknown
“He was bald, round-faced, wrinkled, and clean-shaven. He walked very slowly, and he looked as if he were worried out of his life. There’s the portrait, and you can check it when we get off the boat—you’re bound to see him then.”
“Yes, you’ve a good memory. If I had just passed a man in a passage, I shouldn’t have remembered a thing about him ten minutes afterwards. By the way, have you spoken about the hermit passenger to anybody else?”
“No. Oh, yes, I did mention it to some of the ladies after dinner! Why?”
“I wondered if anybody besides yourself had seen him.”
“Well, they didn’t say they had. Bless you, I’ve known men like that. It’s a sort of sulkiness. They’d sooner be alone.”
A few minutes later I said good-night and left him. It was between one and two in the morning. His story had made a strong impression upon me. My theory of sea-sickness had to go, and I was scared. Quite frankly, I was afraid of meeting something in blue pyjamas. But I was more afraid about Mrs Derrison. There were very few ladies on board, and it was almost certain she was in the group to whom Bartlett had told his story. If that were so, anything might have happened. I decided to go past her state-room, listening as I did so.
But before I reached her room the door opened, and she swung out in her nightdress. She had got her mouth open and one hand at her throat. With the other hand she clutched the handle of the door, as if she were trying to hold it shut against somebody. I hurried towards her, and she turned and saw me. In an instant she was in my arms, clinging to me in sheer mad, helpless terror.
She was hysterical, of course, but fortunately she did not make much noise. She kept saying: “I’ve got to go back to him—into the sea!” It seemed a long time before I could get her calm enough to listen to me.
“You’ve had a bad dream, and it has frightened you, poor child.”
“No, no. Not a dream!”
“It didn’t seem like one to you, but that’s what it was. You’re all right now. I’m going to take care of you.”
“Don’t let go of me for a moment. He wants me. He’s in there.”
“Oh, no! I’ll show you that he’s not there.”
I opened the door. Within all was darkness. I still kept one arm round her, or she would have fallen.
“I left the light on,” she whispered.
“Yes,” I said, “but your sleeve caught the switch as you came out. I saw it.” It was a lie, of course, but one had to lie.
I switched the light on again. The room was empty. There were the tumbled bed-clothes on the berth, and a pillow had fallen to the floor. On the table some toilet things gleamed brightly. There was a pile of feminine garments on the couch. I drew her in and closed the door.
“I’ll put you back into bed again,” I said, “if you don’t mind.”
“If you’ll promise not to go.”
“Oh, I won’t go!”
I picked her up and laid her on the berth, and drew the clothes over her. I put the pillow back under her head. With both her hands she clutched one of mine.
“Now, then,” I said, “do you happen to have any brandy here?”
“In a flask in my dressing-bag. It’s been there for years. I don’t know if it’s any good still.”
She seemed reluctant to let go my hand, and clutched it again eagerly when I brought the brandy. She was quite docile, and drank as I told her. I have not put down half of what she said. She was muttering the whole time. The phrase “into the sea” occurred frequently. All ordinary notions of the relationship of a man and a woman had vanished. I was simply a big brother who was looking after her. That was felt by both of us. We called each other “dear” that night frequently, but there was not a trace of sex-sentimentality between us.
Gradually she became more quiet, and I was no longer afraid that she would faint. Still holding my hand, she said:
“Shall I tell you what it was?”
“Yes, dear, if you like. But you needn’t. It was only a dream, you know.”
“I don’t think it was a dream. I went to sleep, which I had never expected to do after the thing that Mr Bartlett told us. I couldn’t have done it, only I argued that you must be right and the rest must be just a coincidence. Then I was awakened by the sound of somebody breathing close by my ear. It got further away, and I switched on the light quickly. He was standing just there—exactly as I described him to you—and he had picked up a pair of nail-scissors. He was opening and shutting them. Then he put them down open, and shook his head. (Look, they’re open now, and I always close them.) And suddenly he lurched over, almost falling, and clutched the wooden edge of the berth. His red hands—they were terribly red, far redder than they used to be—came on to the wood with a slap. ‘Go into the sea, Sheila,’ he whispered. ‘I’m waiting. I want you.’ And after that I don’t know what happened, but suddenly I was hanging on to you, dear. How long was it ago? Was it an hour? It doesn’t matter. I’m safe while you’re here.”
I released her hands gently. Suddenly the paroxysm of terror returned.
“You’re not going?” she cried, aghast.
“Of course not.” I sat down on the couch opposite her. “But what makes you think you’re safe while I’m here?”
“You’re stronger than he is,” she said.
She said it as if it were a self-evident fact which did not admit of argument. Certainly, though no doubt unreasonably, it gave me confidence. I felt somehow that he and I were fighting for the woman’s life and soul, and I had got him down. I knew that in some mysterious way I was the stronger.
“Well,” I said, “the dream that one is awake is a fairly common dream. But what was the thing that Bartlett told you?”
“He saw him—in blue pyjamas and red slippers. He mentioned the mouth too.”
“I’m glad you told me that,” I said, and began a few useful inventions. “The man that Bartlett saw was Curwen. We’ve just been talking about it.”
“Who’s Curwen?”
“Not a bad chap—an electrical engineer, I believe. As soon as Bartlett mentioned the mole on the cheek and the little black moustache I spotted that it was Curwen.”
“But he said he had never seen him before.”
“Nor had he. Curwen’s a bad sailor and has kept to his state-room—in fact, that was his first public appearance. But I saw Curwen when he came on board and had a talk with him. As soon as Bartlett mentioned the mole, I knew who it was.”
“Then the colour of the slippers and——”
“They were merely a coincidence, and a mighty unlucky one for you.”
“I see,” she said. Her muscles relaxed. She gave a little sigh of relief and sank back on the pillow. I was glad that I had invented Curwen and the mole.
I changed the subject now, and began to talk about Liverpool—not so many miles away now. I asked her if she had changed her American money yet. I spoke about the customs, and confessed to some successful smuggling that I had once done. In fact, I talked about anything that might take her mind away from her panic.
Then I said:
“If you will give me about ten seconds start now, so that I can get back to my own room, you might ring for your stewardess to come and take care of you. It will mean an extra tip for her, and she won’t mind.”
“Yes,” she said, “I ought not to keep you any longer. Indeed, it is very kind of you to have helped me and to have stayed so long. I’ll never forget it. But even now I daren’t be alone for a moment. Will you wait until she’s actually here?”
>
I was not ready for that.
“Well,” I said hesitatingly.
“Of course,” she said. “I hadn’t thought of it. I can’t keep you. You’ve had no sleep at all. And yet if you go, he’ll—— Oh, what am I to do? What am I to do?”
I was afraid she would begin to cry.
“That’s all right,” I said. “I can stay for another hour or two easily enough.”
She was full of gratitude. She told me to throw the things off the end of the couch so that I could lie at full length. I dozed for a while, but I do not think she slept at all. She was wide awake when I opened my eyes. I talked to her for a little, and found her much reassured and calmed. People were beginning to move about. It was necessary for me to go immediately if I was not to be seen.
She agreed at once. When I shook hands with her, and told her to try for an hour’s sleep, she kissed my hand fervently in a childish sort of way. Frightened people behave rather like children.
I was not seen as I came from her room. The luck was with me. It is just possible that on the other side of the ship, a steward saw me enter my own room in evening clothes at a little after five. If he did, it did not matter.
* * *
I have had the most grateful and kindly letters from her and from her new husband—the cheery and handsome man who met her at Liverpool. In her letter she speaks of her “awful nightmare, that even now it seems sometimes as if it must have been real.” She has sent me a cigarette-case that I am afraid I cannot use publicly. A gold cigarette-case with a diamond push-button would give a wrong impression of my income, and the inscription inside might easily be misunderstood. But I like to have it.
Thanks to my innocent mendacity, she has a theory which covers the whole ground. But I myself have no theory at all. I know this—that I might travel to New York by that same boat to-morrow, and that I am waiting three days for another.
I have suppressed the name of the boat, and I think I have said nothing by which she could be identified. I do not want to spoil business. Besides, it may be funk and superstition that convinces me that on every trip she carries a passenger whose name is not on the list. But, for all that, I am quite convinced!
Exchange
1 Doris
THERE was once a girl-child named Doris who went out skating with her bigger brothers one afternoon over flooded fields in the Fen country. But her brothers played hockey with school-fellows, and Doris skated contentedly enough by herself. She was wearing Bob’s skates, which she liked better than her own, and the man had put them on very well indeed. She went from one field through a gap in the hedge into the next, and then on into a third field. There were very few people here, and most of the ice was not swept; all of this was very pleasant to Doris, and made her feel adventurous. It was beautiful, too; and even children unconsciously understand a sunset with those old thin trees trembling black against the crimson disc, and everywhere bits of white brightness on a gray sea of fog. She skated as fast as she could, the wind helping her, feeling strangely and splendidly animated, when quite suddenly...
* * *
But this was not the Fen country. This was the north of Yorkshire. She had been here before on a visit to her cousins. Yonder was the top of Winder; she had climbed it on clear days and seen Morecambe Bay flashing in the distance. But it was night now—almost a black night, and it was very cold for Doris to be wandering over those hills alone. She had an irritating sensation that she had to go somewhere before the dawn came, and that she did not know where or why. It was lonely and awesome. “If I only had somebody to speak to, I shouldn’t mind it so much,” she said to herself. At once she heard a low voice saying, “Doris! Doris!” and she looked round.
In a recess of the ravine which a ghyll had made for itself as it leaped from the cold purity of a hill-top to the warm humanity of a village in the valley—a village no better than it should have been—a small fire of sticks was smouldering. Doris could just see that the person crouched in front of the fire—the person who had called her by her name—was an old, haggard woman, with her chin resting on her knees.
“Tell me, old woman,” Doris said almost angrily, “what does this all mean? I was at Lingay Fen skating, and now I am wandering over the Yorkshire hills. It has changed from afternoon to night——”
“It generally does,” said the old woman in a chilly, unemphatic way. Doris stamped her foot impatiently. “I mean that it has changed quite suddenly. Just a moment ago, too, I felt quite certain that I had to go somewhere, and I had forgotten where. Now I don’t think I have to go anywhere.”
“No—you have arrived,” said the old woman softly.
At that moment a dry twig burst into flame, and lit up the old woman’s face and figure for a second. She was hideous enough; her face was thin and yellow; her cavernous eyes sparkled to the momentary flicker. Her dress and cloak were torn and faded, but they had been bright scarlet.
“You naturally ask why,” she continued, “because you are young and have not yet learned the uselessness of it. What has just happened to you seems very meaningless and foolish, but it is not more meaningless and foolish than the rest of things. It is all a poor sort of game, you know. Explain? No, I shall not explain; but it was I who brought you here. Sit down by me under the night sky, and watch.”
“No, I will not,” said Doris, and walked away. She took about ten paces away, and then came back again and did the very thing which she said she would not do. She sat down by the old woman, and was a little angry because she could not help doing it. Then she began to grumble at the fire. “That’s not half a fire,” she said; “it just smoulders and makes smoke. I will show you what you ought to do. You put on some fresh sticks—so. Then you put your mouth quite close to the embers, and blow and keep—on—blowing. There!” She had fitted her actions to her words, and now a bright flame leaped out. It shone all over, on her dark hair and dark bright eyes, and on the gray furs of her dress. It shone, too, on the old woman, who was smiling an ugly, half-suppressed smile.
“Doris,” said the old woman, “leave the fire alone. I do not want flame. I only want it to stream forth smoke.”
“But why?”
“See now—there.” The old woman made a downward gesture with both hands, and the flame sank obediently down again, giving place to a quick yield of black smoke. “Look at the smoke, Doris. That is what you have to watch. There was a little more energy in the old, quavering voice now.
Doris did as she was told; but suddenly she stopped and cried, half-frightened, “There are faces in it!”
“Yes, yes,” said the old woman, almost eagerly; “and there are pictures of the future in it—of the future as it will be unless I alter it this night. I alone can alter it, you know. Are you not glad now that you came?”
“It is something like fortune-telling; did you ever have your fortune told?”
“No, I never did,” replied the old woman. Her smile was very ugly indeed.
“But how shall I know that it’s true?”
“Why, you do know.”
That was the strangest part of it. Doris felt certain without having a reason that she could give for it. “Show me my future,” she said breathlessly.
“Watch the smoke, then.”
So she watched, and picture followed picture. At the first of them she made some little exclamation. “Ah!” she cried, “that is a splendid dress; and I do like those shoes. I wish I might have long dresses now—I’m sure I’m old enough; and I want to have my hair done up the proper way, but——” She stopped suddenly, because the picture had changed. “I look much prettier in this one,” she said. “I have been dancing, I think, fr
om the dress, and because I seem a little out of breath. There is a man with me, and now he—no, no! I would not . I should hate it. That picture cannot be right!” The third picture represented her marriage with great splendor. “Well,” she said, “I do not mind that so much—just standing up and wearing a beautiful veil. But I don’t want to be married at all. I like skating ever so much better.”
There was a faint sound of laughter, muffled and bitter, from the old woman. “You like skating?” she said. “Where are your skates, then, Doris?” Doris looked for them, but could not find them, and this distressed her. “Oh, what shall I do? They were not my skates; they were Bob’s.”
“Who is Bob?”
“Bob is my smallest brother—ever so much younger than I am; he’s my favorite brother, too. He’s got red hair, but he’s a pretty boy.”
“He must be a milksop if he can’t skate.”
“He can skate. He can do the outside edge backward; he skates better than any of my three big brothers.”
“Well, well—it’s a pity that he’s stupid, though.”
“Stupid? Do you know why he lent me his skates? Because he was going to write a story this afternoon, and he’s going to put me in it. Bob can do almost anything. He’s wonderful. When he grows up he’ll very likely write a whole book, he says.”
“Look at his future—Bob’s future—in the smoke,” said the old woman grimly, heaping on more sticks.