“Where is the old one?” she demanded abruptly. “Why?” asked Oleron.
“I want to see it. I want to show some of it to you. I want, if you're not wool-gathering entirely, to bring you back to your senses.”
This time it was he who turned his back. But when he turned round again he spoke more gently.
“It's no good, Elsie. I'm responsible for the way I go, and you must allow me to go it—even if it should seem wrong to you. Believe me, I am giving thought to it… The manuscript? I was on the point of burning it, but I didn't. It's in that window-seat, if you must see it.”
Miss Bengough crossed quickly to the window-seat, and lifted the lid. Suddenly she gave a little exclamation, and put the back of her hand to her mouth. She spoke over her shoulder:
“You ought to knock those nails in, Paul,” she said. He strode to her side.
“What? What is it? What's the matter?” he asked. “I did knock them in—or, rather, pulled them out.”
“You left enough to scratch with,” she replied, showing her hand. From the upper wrist to the knuckle of the little finger a welling red wound showed.
“Good—Gracious!” Oleron ejaculated… “Here, come to the bathroom and bathe it quickly—”
He hurried her to the bathroom, turned on warm water, and bathed and cleansed the bad gash. Then, still holding the hand, he turned cold water on it, uttering broken phrases of astonishment and concern.
“Good Lord, how did that happen! As far as I knew I'd… is this water too cold? Does that hurt? I can't imagine how on earth… there; that'll do—”
“No—one moment longer—I can bear it,” she murmured, her eyes closed.
Presently he led her back to the sitting-room and bound the hand in one of his handkerchiefs; but his face did not lose its expression of perplexity. He had spent half a day in opening and making serviceable the three window-boxes, and he could not conceive how he had come to leave an inch and a half of rusty nail standing in the wood. He himself had opened the lids of each of them a dozen times and had not noticed any nail; but there it was.
“It shall come out now, at all events,” he muttered, as he went for a pair of pincers. And he made no mistake about it that time.
Elsie Bengough had sunk into a chair, and her face was rather white; but in her hand was the manuscript of Romilly. She had not finished with Romilly yet. Presently she returned to the charge.
“Oh, Paul, it will be the greatest mistake you ever, ever made if you do not publish this!” she said.
He hung his head, genuinely distressed. He couldn't get that incident of the nail out of his head, and Romilly occupied a second place in his thoughts for the moment. But still she insisted; and when presently he spoke it was almost as if he asked her pardon for something.
“What can I say, Elsie? I can only hope that when you see the new version, you'll see how right I am. And if in spite of all you don't like her, well… ” he made a hopeless gesture. “Don't you see that I must be guided by my own lights?”
She was silent.
“Come, Elsie,” he said gently. “We've got along well so far; don't let us split on this.”
The last words had hardly passed his lips before he regretted them. She had been nursing her injured hand, with her eyes once more closed; but her lips and lids quivered simultaneously. Her voice shook as she spoke.
“I can't help saying it, Paul, but you are so greatly changed.”
“Hush, Elsie,” he murmured soothingly; “you've had a shock; rest for a while. How could I change?”
“I don't know, but you are. You've not been yourself ever since you came here. I wish you'd never seen the place. It's stopped your work, it's making you into a person I hardly know, and it's made me horribly anxious about you… Oh, how my hand is beginning to throb!”
“Poor child!” he murmured. “Will you let me take you to a doctor and have it properly dressed?”
“No—I shall be all right presently—I'll keep it raised—” She put her elbow on the back of her chair, and the bandaged hand rested lightly on his shoulder.
At that touch an entirely new anxiety stirred suddenly within him. Hundreds of times previously, on their jaunts and excursions, she had slipped her hand within his arm as she might have slipped it into the arm of a brother, and he had accepted the little affectionate gesture as a brother might have accepted it. But now, for the first time, there rushed into his mind a hundred startling questions. Her eyes were still closed, and her head had fallen pathetically back; and there was a lost and ineffable smile on her parted lips. The truth broke in upon him. Good God!… And he had never divined it!
And stranger than all was that, now that he did see that she was lost in love of him, there came to him, not sorrow and humility and abasement, but something else that he struggled in vain against— something entirely strange and new, that, had he analysed it, he would have found to be petulance and irritation and resentment and ungentleness. The sudden selfish prompting mastered him before he was aware. He all but gave it words. What was she doing there at all? Why was she not getting on with her own work? Why was she here interfering with his? Who had given her this guardianship over him that lately she had put forward so assertively?—“Changed?” It was she, not himself, who had changed…
But by the time she had opened her eyes again he had overcome his resentment sufficiently to speak gently, albeit with reserve.
“I wish you would let me take you to a doctor.” She rose.
“No, thank you, Paul,” she said. “I'll go now. If I need a dressing I'll get one; take the other hand, please. Goodbye—”
He did not attempt to detain her. He walked with her to the foot of the stairs. Halfway along the narrow alley she turned.
“It would be a long way to come if you happened not to be in,” she said; “I'll send you a postcard the next time.”
At the gate she turned again.
“Leave here, Paul,” she said, with a mournful look. “Everything's wrong with this house.”
Then she was gone.
Oleron returned to his room. He crossed straight to the window-box. He opened the lid and stood long looking at it. Then he closed it again and turned away.
“That's rather frightening,” he muttered. “It's simply not possible that I should not have removed that nail…”
VI
Oleron knew very well what Elsie had meant when she had said that her next visit would be preceded by a postcard. She, too, had realised that at last, at last he knew—knew, and didn't want her. It gave him a miserable, pitiful pang, therefore, when she came again within a week, knocking at the door unannounced. She spoke from the landing; she did not intend to stay, she said; and he had to press her before she would so much as enter.
Her excuse for calling was that she had heard of an inquiry for short stories that he might be wise to follow up. He thanked her. Then, her business over, she seemed anxious to get away again. Oleron did not seek to detain her; even he saw through the pretext of the stories; and he accompanied her down the stairs.
But Elsie Bengough had no luck whatever in that house. A second accident befell her. Halfway down the staircase there was the sharp sound of splintering wood, and she checked a loud cry. Oleron knew the woodwork to be old, but he himself had ascended and descended frequently enough without mishap…
Elsie had put her foot through one of the stairs. He sprang to her side in alarm.
“Oh, I say! My poor girl!” She laughed hysterically. “It's my weight—I know I'm getting fat—”
“Keep still—let me clear these splinters away,” he muttered between his teeth.
She continued to laugh and sob that it was her weight—she was getting fat—
He thrust downwards at the broken boards. The extrication was no easy matter, and her torn boot showed him how badly the foot and ankle within it must be abraded.
“Good God—good God!” he muttered over and over again.
“I shall be too heavy for
anything soon,” she sobbed and laughed. But she refused to reascend and to examine her hurt.
“No, let me go quickly—let me go quickly,” she repeated. “But it's a frightful gash!”
“No—not so bad—let me get away quickly—I'm—I'm not wanted.”
At her words, that she was not wanted, his head dropped as if she had given him a buffet.
“Elsie!” he choked, brokenly and shocked.
But she too made a quick gesture, as if she put something violently aside.
“Oh, Paul, not that—not you—of course I do mean that too in a sense—oh, you know what I mean!… But if the other can't be, spare me this now! I—I wouldn't have come, but—but oh, I did, I did try to keep away!”
It was intolerable, heartbreaking; but what could he do—what could he say? He did not love her…
“Let me go—I'm not wanted—let me take away what's left of me—”
“Dear Elsie—you are very dear to me—”
But again she made the gesture, as of putting something violently aside.
“No, not that—not anything less—don't offer me anything less—leave me a little pride—”
“Let me get my hat and coat—let me take you to a doctor,” he muttered.
But she refused. She refused even the support of his arm. She gave another unsteady laugh.
“I'm sorry I broke your stairs, Paul… You will go and see about the short stories, won't you?”
He groaned.
“Then if you won't see a doctor, will you go across the square and let Mrs Barrett look at you? Look, there's Barrett passing now—”
The long-nosed Barrett was looking curiously down the alley, but as Oleron was about to call him he made off without a word. Elsie seemed anxious for nothing so much as to be clear of the place, and finally promised to go straight to a doctor, but insisted on going alone.
“Goodbye,” she said.
And Oleron watched her until she was past the hatchet-like “To Let” boards, as if he feared that even they might fall upon her and maim her.
That night Oleron did not dine. He had far too much on his mind. He walked from room to room of his flat, as if he could have walked away from Elsie Bengough's haunting cry that still rang in his ears. “I'm not wanted—don't offer me anything less—let me take away what's left of me—”
Oh, if he could only have persuaded himself that he loved her!
He walked until twilight fell, then, without lighting candles, he stirred up the fire and flung himself into a chair.
Poor, poor Elsie!…
But even while his heart ached for her, it was out of the question. If only he had known! If only he had used common observation! But those walks, those sisterly takings of the arm— what a fool he had been!… Well, it was too late now. It was she, not he, who must now act—act by keeping away. He would help her all he could. He himself would not sit in her presence. If she came, he would hurry her out again as fast as he could… Poor, poor Elsie!
His room grew dark; the fire burned dead; and he continued to sit, wincing from time to time as a fresh tortured phrase rang again in his ears.
Then suddenly, he knew not why, he found himself anxious for her in a new sense—uneasy about her personal safety. A horrible fancy that even then she might be looking over an embankment down into dark water, that she might even now be glancing up at the hook on the door, took him. Women had been known to do those things… Then there would be an inquest, and he himself would be called upon to identify her, and would be asked how she had come by an ill-healed wound on the hand and a bad abrasion of the ankle. Barrett would say that he had seen her leaving his house…
Then he recognised that his thoughts were morbid. By an effort of will he put them aside, and sat for a while listening to the faint creakings and tickings and rappings within his panelling…
If only he could have married her!… But he couldn't. Her face had risen before him again as he had seen it on the stairs, drawn with pain and ugly and swollen with tears. Ugly—yes, positively blubbered; if tears were women's weapons, as they were said to be, such tears were weapons turning against themselves… suicide again…
Then all at once he found himself attentively considering her two accidents.
Extraordinary they had been, both of them. He could not have left that old nail standing in the wood; why, he had fetched tools specially from the kitchen; and he was convinced that that step that had broken beneath her weight had been as sound as the others. It was inexplicable. If these things could happen, anything could happen. There was not a beam nor a jamb in the place that might not fall without warning, not a plank that might not crash inwards, not a nail that might not become a dagger. The whole place was full of life even now; as he sat there in the dark he heard its crowds of noises as if the house had been one great microphone…
Only half conscious that he did so, he had been sitting for some time identifying these noises, attributing to each crack or creak or knock its material cause; but there was one noise which, again not fully conscious of the omission, he had not sought to account for. It had last come some minutes ago; it came again now—a sort of soft sweeping rustle that seemed to hold an almost inaudible minute crackling. For half a minute or so it had Oleron's attention; then his heavy thoughts were of Elsie Bengough again.
He was nearer to loving her in that moment than he had ever been. He thought how to some men their loved ones were but the dearer for those poor mortal blemishes that tell us we are but sojourners on earth, with a common fate not far distant that makes it hardly worth while to do anything but love for the time remaining. Strangling sobs, blearing tears, bodies buffeted by sickness, hearts and mind callous and hard with the rubs of the world—how little love there would be were these things a barrier to love! In that sense he did love Elsie Bengough. What her happiness had never moved in him her sorrow almost awoke…
Suddenly his meditation went. His ear had once more become conscious of that soft and repeated noise—the long sweep with the almost inaudible crackle in it. Again and again it came, with a curious insistence and urgency. It quickened a little as he became increasingly attentive… it seemed to Oleron that it grew louder…
All at once he started bolt upright in his chair, tense and listening. The silky rustle came again; he was trying to attach it to something…
The next moment he had leapt to his feet, unnerved and terrified. His chair hung poised for a moment, and then went over, setting the fire-irons clattering as it fell. There was only one noise in the world like that which had caused him to spring thus to his feet…
The next time it came Oleron felt behind him at the empty air with his hand, and backed slowly until he found himself against the wall.
“God in Heaven!” The ejaculation broke from Oleron's lips.
The sound had ceased.
The next moment he had given a high cry. “What is it? What's there? Who's there?”
A sound of scuttling caused his knees to bend under him for a moment; but that, he knew, was a mouse. That was not something that his stomach turned sick and his mind reeled to entertain. That other sound, the like of which was not in the world, had now entirely ceased; and again he called…
He called and continued to call; and then another terror, a terror of the sound of his own voice, seized him. He did not dare to call again. His shaking hand went to his pocket for a match, but found none. He thought there might be matches on the mantelpiece—
He worked his way to the mantelpiece round a little recess, without for a moment leaving the wall. Then his hand encountered the mantelpiece, and groped along it. A box of matches fell to the hearth. He could just see them in the firelight, but his hand could not pick them up until he had cornered them inside the fender.
Then he rose and struck a light.
The room was as usual. He struck a second match. A candle stood on the table. He lighted it, and the flame sank for a moment and then burned up clear. Again he looked round.
There was nothing.
There was nothing; but there had been something, and might still be something. Formerly, Oleron had smiled at the fantastic thought that, by a merging and interplay of identities between himself and his beautiful room, he might be preparing a ghost for the future; it had not occurred to him that there might have been a similar merging and coalescence in the past. Yet with this staggering impossibility he was now face to face. Something did persist in the house; it had a tenant other than himself; and that tenant, whatsoever or whosoever, had appalled Oleron's soul by producing the sound of a woman brushing her hair.
VII
Without quite knowing how he came to be there Oleron found himself striding over the loose board he had temporarily placed on the step broken by Miss Bengough. He was hatless, and descending the stairs. Not until later did there return to him a hazy memory that he had left the candle burning on the table, had opened the door no wider than was necessary to allow the passage of his body, and had sidled out, closing the door softly behind him. At the foot of the stairs another shock awaited him. Something dashed with a flurry up from the disused cellars and disappeared out of the door. It was only a cat, but Oleron gave a childish sob.
He passed out of the gate, and stood for a moment under the “To Let” boards, plucking foolishly at his lip and looking up at the glimmer of light behind one of his red blinds. Then, still looking over his shoulder, he moved stumblingly up the square. There was a small public-house round the corner; Oleron had never entered it; but he entered it now, and put down a shilling that missed the counter by inches.
“B—b—bran—brandy,” he said, and then stooped to look for the shilling.
He had the little sawdusted bar to himself; what company there was—carters and labourers and the small tradesmen of the neighbourhood—was gathered in the farther compartment, beyond the space where the white-haired landlady moved among her taps and bottles. Oleron sat down on a hardwood settee with a perforated seat, drank half his brandy, and then, thinking he might as well drink it as spill it, finished it.
There Is a Graveyard That Dwells in Man Page 22